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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Amanda, by Anna Balmer Myers
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Amanda
+       A Daughter of the Mennonites
+
+Author: Anna Balmer Myers
+
+Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6330]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on November 27, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMANDA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: She still felt the wonder of being rescued from the
+fire.]
+
+
+
+AMANDA
+
+A DAUGHTER OF THE MENNONITES
+
+BY
+
+ANNA BALMER MYERS
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+HELEN MASON GROSS
+
+
+
+
+_To My Sister_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    I. "WHILE THE HEART BEATS YOUNG"
+   II. THE SNITZING PARTY
+  III. BOILING APPLE BUTTER
+   IV. A VISIT TO MARTIN'S MOTHER
+    V. AT AUNT REBECCA'S HOUSE
+   VI. SCHOOL DAYS
+  VII. AMANDA REIST, TEACHER
+ VIII. THE SPELLING BEE
+   IX. AT THE MARKET
+    X. PINK MOCCASINS
+   XI. THE BOARDER
+  XII. UNHAPPY DAYS
+ XIII. THE TROUBLE MAKER
+  XIV. THE COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT'S VISIT
+   XV. "MARTIN'S GIRL"
+  XVI. AUNT REBECCA'S WILL
+ XVII. MARTIN'S DARK HOUR
+XVIII. THE COMFORTER
+  XIX. VINDICATION
+   XX. DINNER AT LANDIS'S
+  XXI. BERRYING
+ XXII. ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP
+XXIII. TESTS
+ XXIV. "YOU SAVED THE WRONG ONE"
+  XXV. THE HEART OF MILLIE
+ XXVI. "ONE HEART MADE O'TWO"
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+She Still Felt the Wonder of Being Rescued From the Fire
+The Rhubarb Leaf Parasol
+"What Did Lyman Tell You? I Must Know"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"WHILE THE HEART BEATS YOUNG"
+
+
+The scorching heat of a midsummer day beat mercilessly upon the earth.
+Travelers on the dusty roads, toilers in the fields, and others exposed
+to the rays of the sun, thought yearningly of cooling winds and running
+streams. They would have looked with envy upon the scene being enacted
+in one of the small streams of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. There a
+little red-haired girl, barefooted, her short gingham skirt tucked up
+unevenly here and there, was wading in the cool, shallow waters of a
+creek that was tree-bordered and willow-arched. Her clear, rippling
+laughter of sheer joy broke through the Sabbatical calm of that quiet
+spot and echoed up and down the meadow as she splashed about in the
+brook.
+
+"Ach," she said aloud, "this here's the best fun! Abody wouldn't hardly
+know it's so powerful hot out to-day. All these trees round the crick
+makes it cool. I like wadin' and pickin' up the pebbles, some of 'em
+washed round and smooth like little white soup beans--ach, I got to
+watch me," she exclaimed, laughing, as she made a quick movement to
+retain her equilibrium. "The big stones are slippery from bein' in the
+water. Next I know I'll sit right down in the crick. Then wouldn't Phil
+be ready to laugh at me! It wonders me now where he is. I wish he'd
+come once and we'd have some fun."
+
+As if in answer to her wish a boyish whistle rang out, followed by a
+long-drawn "Oo-oh, Manda, where are you?"
+
+"Here. Wadin' in the crick," she called. "Come on in."
+
+She splashed gleefully about as her brother came into sight and walked
+with mock dignity through the meadow to the stream. He held his red-
+crowned head high and sang teasingly, "Manda, Manda, red-headed Manda;
+tee-legged, toe-legged, bow-legged Manda!"
+
+"Philip Reist," she shouted crossly, "I am not! My legs are
+straighter'n yours! You dare, you just dare once, to come in the crick
+and say that and see what you get!"
+
+Although two years her junior he accepted the challenge and repeated
+the doggerel as he planted his bare feet in the water. She splashed him
+and he retaliated, but the boy, though smaller, was agile, and in an
+unguarded moment he caught the girl by the wrists and pushed her so she
+sat squarely in the shallow waters of the brook.
+
+"Hey, smarty," he exulted impishly as he held her there, "you will get
+fresh with me, you will, huh?"
+
+"Phil, let me up, leave me go, I'm all wet."
+
+"Now, how did that happen, I wonder. My goodness, what will Mamma say?"
+he teased.
+
+"Phil," the girl half coaxed, but he read a desire for revenge in her
+face.
+
+"Jiminy Christmas, don't cry." He puckered up his lips in imitation of
+a whimpering girl. "Got enough?"
+
+"Phil," the word rang crossly, "you let me be now."
+
+"All right, cry baby." He loosened his hold on her wrists. "But because
+you're such a fraid cat I'll not give you what I brought for you."
+
+"What is it?" The girl scrambled to her feet, curiosity helping her to
+forget momentarily the boy's tricks. "What did you bring me?"
+
+"Something that's little and almost round and blue and I got it in a
+tree. Now if you're not a blockhead mebbe you can guess what it is."
+He moved his hand about in his pocket.
+
+"Phil, let me see." The words were plain coaxing then.
+
+"Here." And he drew from his pocket a robin's egg.
+
+"Philip Reist! Where did you get that?" The girl's voice was stern and
+loud.
+
+"Ach, I found the dandiest nest out on one of the cherry trees and I
+know you like dinky birds and thought I'd get you an egg. There's three
+more in the nest; I guess that's enough for any robin. Anyhow, they had
+young ones in that nest early in the summer."
+
+"You bad boy! How dare you rob a bird's nest? God will punish you for
+that!" Her eyes blazed with wrath at the thoughtless deed of the lad.
+
+"Ach," he answered boldly, "what's the use fussin' 'bout a dinky bird's
+egg? You make me sick, Manda. Cry about it now! Oh, the poor little
+birdie lost its egg," he whined in falsetto voice.
+
+"You--you--I guess I won't wait for God to punish you, Philip Reist."
+With the words she grabbed and sat him in the water. "You need
+something _right now_ to make you remember not to take eggs from
+nests. And here it is! When you want to do it after this just think of
+the day I sat you down in the crick. I'm goin' to tell Mom on you, too,
+that's what I am."
+
+"Yea, tattle-tale, girls are all tattle-tales!"
+
+He struggled to escape but the hold of his sister was vise-like.
+
+"Will you leave nests alone?" she demanded.
+
+"Ah, who wants to steal eggs? I just brought you one 'cause I thought
+you'd like it."
+
+"Well, I don't. So let the eggs where they belong," she said as she
+relaxed her clasp and he rose.
+
+"Now look at us," he began, then the funny spectacle of wet clothes
+sent each laughing.
+
+"Gee," he said, "won't we get Sam Hill from Mom?"
+
+"What's Sam Hill?" she asked. "And where do you learn such awful slang?
+Abody can hardly understand you half the time. Mom says you should stop
+it."
+
+"Yea, that reminds me, Manda, what I come for. Mom said you're to come
+in and get your dresses tried on. And mebbe you'd like to know that
+Aunt Rebecca's here again. She just come and is helpin' to sew and if
+she sees our clothes wet--oh, yea!"
+
+"Oh yea," echoed Amanda with the innocent candor of a twelve-year-old.
+"Aunt Rebecca--is she here again? Ach, if she wasn't so cranky I'd be
+glad still when she comes, but you know how she acts all the time."
+
+"Um-uh. Uncle Amos says still she's prickly like a chestnut burr.
+Jiminy crickets, she's worse'n any burr I ever seen!"
+
+"Well," the girl said thoughtfully, "but chestnut burrs are like velvet
+inside. Mebbe she'd be nice inside if only abody had the dare to find
+out."
+
+"Ach, come on," urged the boy, impatient at the girl's philosophy. "Mom
+wants you to fit. Come on, get pins stuck in you and then I'll laugh.
+Gee, I'm glad I'm not a girl! Fittin' dresses on a day like this--whew!
+"
+
+"Well," she tossed her red head proudly, "I'm glad I'm one!" A sudden
+thought came to her--"Come in, Phil, while I fit and then we'll set in
+the kitchen and count how often Aunt Rebecca says, My goodness."
+
+"Um-uh," he agreed readily, "come on, Manda. That'll be peachy."
+
+The children laughed in anticipation of a good time as they ran through
+the hot sun of the pasture lot, up the narrow path along the cornfield
+fence and into the back yard of their home.
+
+The Reist farm with its fine orchards and great fields of grain was
+manifestly the home of prosperous, industrious farmers. From its big
+gardens were gathered choice vegetables to be sold in the famous
+markets of Lancaster, five miles distant. The farmhouse, a big square
+brick building of old-fashioned design, was located upon a slight
+elevation and commanded from its wide front porch a panoramic view of a
+large section of the beautiful Garden Spot of America.
+
+The household consisted of Mrs. Reist, a widow, her two children, her
+brother Amos Rohrer, who was responsible for the success of the farm,
+and a hired girl, Millie Hess, who had served the household so long and
+faithfully that she seemed an integral part of the family.
+
+Mrs. Reist was a sweet-faced, frail little woman, a member of the
+Mennonite Church. She wore the plain garb adopted by the women of that
+sect--the tight-fitting waist covered by a pointed shoulder cape, the
+full skirt and the white cap upon smoothly combed, parted hair. Her
+red-haired children were so like their father had been, that at times
+her heart contracted at sight of them. His had been a strong, buoyant
+spirit and when her hands, like Moses' of old, had required steadying,
+he had never failed her. At first his death left her helpless and
+discouraged as she faced the task of rearing without his help the two
+young children, children about whom they had dreamed great dreams and
+for whom they had planned wonderful things. But gradually the widowed
+mother developed new courage, and though frail in body grew brave in
+spirit and faced cheerfully the rearing of Amanda and Philip.
+
+The children had inherited the father's strength, his happy
+cheerfulness, his quick-to-anger and quicker-to-repent propensity, but
+the mother's gentleness also dwelt in them. Laughing, merry, they sang
+their way through the days, protesting vehemently when things went
+contrary to their desires, but laughing the next moment in the
+irresponsible manner of youth the world over. That August day the
+promise of fun at Aunt Rebecca's expense quite compensated for the
+unpleasantness of her visit.
+
+Aunt Rebecca Miller was an elder sister to Mrs. Reist, so said the
+inscription in the big family Bible. But it was difficult to understand
+how the two women could have been mothered by one person.
+
+Millie, the hired girl, expressed her opinion freely to Amanda one day
+after a particularly trying time with the old woman. "How that Rebecca
+Miller can be your mom's sister now beats me. She's more like a wasp
+than anything I ever seen without wings. It's sting, sting all the time
+with her; nothin' anybody does or says is just right. She's
+faultfindin' every time she comes. It wonders me sometimes if she'll
+like heaven when she gets up there, or if she'll see some things she'd
+change if she had her way. And mostly all the plain people are so nice
+that abody's got to like 'em, but she's not like the others, I guess.
+Most every time she comes she makes me mad. She's too bossy. Why,
+to-day when I was fryin' doughnuts she bothered me so that I just
+wished the fat would spritz her good once and she'd go and leave me be."
+
+It will be seen that Millie felt free to voice her opinions at all
+times in the Reist family. She was a plain-faced, stout little woman of
+thirty-five, a product of the Pennsylvania Dutch country. Orphaned at
+an early age she had been buffeted about sorely until the happy day she
+entered the Reist household. Their kindness to her won her heart and
+she repaid them by a staunch devotion. The Reist joys, sorrows,
+perplexities and anxieties were shared by her and she naturally came in
+for a portion of Aunt Rebecca's faultfinding.
+
+Cross-grained and trying, Rebecca Miller was unlike the majority of the
+plain, unpretentious people of that rural community. In all her years
+she had failed to appreciate the futility of fuss, the sin of useless
+worry, and had never learned the invaluable lesson of minding her own
+business. "She means well," Mrs. Reist said in conciliatory tones when
+Uncle Amos or the children resented the interference of the dictatorial
+relative, but secretly she wondered how Rebecca could be so--so--she
+never finished the sentence.
+
+"Well, my goodness, here she comes once!" Amanda heard her aunt's
+rasping voice as they entered the house.
+
+Stifling an "Oh yea" the girl walked into the sitting-room.
+
+"Hello, Aunt Rebecca," she said dutifully, then turned to her mother--
+"You want me?"
+
+"My goodness, your dress is all wet in the back!" Aunt Rebecca said
+shrilly. "What in the world did you do?"
+
+Before she could reply Philip turned about so his wet clothes were on
+view. "And you too!" cried the visitor. "My goodness, what was you two
+up to? Such wet blotches like you got!" "We were wadin' in the crick,"
+Amanda said demurely, as her mother smoothed the tousled red hair back
+from the flushed forehead.
+
+"My goodness! Wadin' in the crick in dog days!" exploded Aunt Rebecca.
+
+"Now for that she'll turn into a doggie, ain't, Mom?" said the boy
+roguishly.
+
+Aunt Rebecca looked over her steel-rimmed spectacles at the two
+children who were bubbling over with laughter. "I think," she said
+sternly, "people don't learn children no manners no more."
+
+"Ach," the mother said soothingly, "you mustn't mind them. They get so
+full of laughin' even when we don't see what's to laugh at."
+
+"Yes," put in Amanda, "the Bible says it's good to have a merry heart
+and me and Phil's got one. You like us that way, don't you, Mom?"
+
+ "Yes," the mother agreed. "Now you go put on dry things, then I want
+to fit your dresses. And, Philip, are you wet through?"
+
+"Naw. These thick pants don't get wet through if I rutch in water an
+hour. Jiminy pats, Mom, girls are delicate, can't stand a little
+wettin'."
+
+"You just wait, Phil," Amanda called to him as she ran up-stairs,
+"you're gettin' some good wettin' yet. I ain't done with you."
+
+"Cracky, who's afraid?" he called.
+
+A little later the girl appeared in dry clothes.
+
+"Ach," she said, "I forgot to wash my hands. I better go out to the
+pump and clean 'em so I don't get my new dresses dirty right aways."
+
+She ran to the pump on the side porch and jerked the handle up and
+down, while her brother followed and watched her, defiance in his eyes.
+
+"Well," she said suddenly, "if you want it I'll give it to you now."
+With that she caught him and soused his head in the tin basin that
+stood in the trough. "One for duckin' me in the crick, and another for
+stealin' that bird's egg, and a third to learn you some sense." Before
+he could get his breath she had run into the house and stood before her
+mother ready for the fitting. "I like this goods, Mom," she told the
+mother as the new dress was slipped over her head. "I think the brown
+goes good with my red hair, and the blue gingham is pretty, too. Only
+don't never buy me no pink nor red."
+
+"I won't. Not unless your hair turns brown."
+
+"My goodness, but you spoil her," came the unsolicited opinion of Aunt
+Rebecca. "When I was little I wore what my mom bought me, and so did
+you. We would never thought of sayin', 'Don't get me this or that.'"
+
+"But with red hair it's different. And as long as blue and brown and
+colors Amanda likes don't cost more than those she don't want I can't
+see why she shouldn't have what she wants."
+
+"Well, abody wonders what kind o' children plain people expect to raise
+nowadays with such caterin' to their vanity."
+
+Mrs. Reist bit her lips and refrained from answering. The expression of
+joy on the face of Amanda as she looked down at her new dress took away
+the sting of the older woman's words. "I want," the mother said softly,
+"I want my children to have a happy childhood. It belongs to them. And
+I want them to remember me for a kind mom."
+
+"Ach, Mom, you _are_ a good mom." Amanda leaned over the mother,
+who was pinning the hem in the new dress, and pressed a kiss on the top
+of the white-capped head. "When I grow up I want to be like you. And
+when I'm big and you're old, won't you be the nicest granny!"
+
+Aunt Rebecca suddenly looked sad and meek. Perhaps a partial
+appreciation of what she missed by being childless came to her. What
+thrills she might have known if happy children ran to her with shouts
+of "Granny!" But she did not carry the thread of thought far enough to
+analyze her own actions and discover that, though childless, she could
+attract the love of other people's children if she chose. The tender
+moment was fleet. She looked at Amanda and Philip and saw in them only
+two children prone to evil, requiring stern disciplining.
+
+"Now don't go far from the house," said Mrs. Reist later, "for your
+other dress is soon ready to fit. As soon as Aunt Rebecca gets the
+pleats basted in the skirt."
+
+"I'll soon get them in. But it's foolishness to go to all that bother
+when gathers would do just as good and go faster."
+
+Amanda turned away and a moment later she and Phil were seated on the
+long wooden settee in the kitchen. The boy had silently agreed to a
+temporary truce so that the game of counting might be played. He would
+pay back his sister some other time. Gee, it was easy to get her goat--
+just a little thing like a caterpillar dropped down her neck would make
+her holler!
+
+"Gee, Manda, I thought of a bully thing!" the boy whispered. "If that
+old crosspatch Rebecca says 'My goodness' thirty times till four
+o'clock I'll fetch a tobacco worm and put it in her bonnet. If she
+don't say it that often you got to put one in. Huh? Manda, ain't that a
+peachy game to play?"
+
+"All right," agreed the girl. "I'll get paper and pencil to keep
+count." She slipped into the other room and in a few minutes the two
+settled themselves on the settee, their ears straining to hear every
+word spoken by the women in the next room.
+
+"My goodness, this thread breaks easy! They don't make nothin' no more
+like they used to," came through the open door.
+
+"That's one," said Phil; "make a stroke on the paper. Jiminy Christmas,
+that's easy! Bet you we get that paper full of strokes!"
+
+"My goodness, that girl's shootin' up! It wouldn't wonder me if you got
+to leave these dresses down till time for school. Now if I was you I'd
+make them plenty big and let her grow into 'em. Our mom always done
+that."
+
+And so the conversation went on until there were twenty lines on the
+paper. The game was growing exciting and, under the stress of it, the
+counting on the old settee rose above the discreet whisper it was
+originally meant to be. "Twenty-one!" cried Amanda. Aunt Rebecca walked
+to the door.
+
+"What's you two up to?" she asked. "Oh, you got the hymn-book. My
+goodness, what for you writin' on the hymn-book?" She turned to her
+sister. "Ain't you goin' to make 'em stop that? A hymn-book ain't to be
+wrote on!"
+
+"Twenty-two," cried Phil, secure in the knowledge that his mother would
+not object to their use of the book and safely confident that the aunt
+could not dream what they were doing.
+
+"What is twenty-two? Look once, Amanda," said the woman, taking the
+mention of the number to refer to a hymn.
+
+The girl opened the book. "Beulah Land," she read, a sudden compunction
+seizing her.
+
+"Ach, yes, Beulah Land--I sang that when I was a girl still. My
+goodness, abody gets old quick." She sighed and returned to her sewing.
+
+"Twenty-three, countin' the last one," prompted Phil. "Mark it down.
+Gee, it's a cinch."
+
+But Amanda looked sober. "Phil, mebbe it ain't right to make fun of her
+so and count after how often she says the same thing. She looked kinda
+teary when she said that about gettin' old quick."
+
+"Ach, go on," said Philip, too young to appreciate the subtle shades of
+feelings or looks. "You can't back out of it now. Gee, what's bitin'
+you? It ain't four o'clock yet, and it ain't right, neither, to go back
+on a promise. Anyhow, if we don't go on and count up to thirty you got
+to put the worm in her bonnet--you said you would--girls are no good,
+they get cold feet."
+
+Thus spurred, Amanda resumed the game until the coveted thirty lines
+were marked on the paper. Then, the goal reached, it was Phil's duty to
+find a tobacco worm.
+
+Supper at the Reist farmhouse was an ample meal. By that time the
+hardest portion of the day's labor was completed and the relaxation
+from physical toil made the meal doubly enjoyable. Millie saw to it
+that there was always appetizing food set upon the big square table in
+the kitchen. Two open doors and three screened windows looking out upon
+green fields and orchards made the kitchen a cool refuge that hot
+August day.
+
+Uncle Amos, a fat, flushed little man, upon whose shoulders rested the
+responsibilities of that big farm, sat at the head of the table. His
+tired figure sagged somewhat, but his tanned face shone from a vigorous
+scrubbing. Millie sat beside Mrs. Reist, for she was, as she expressed
+it, "Nobody's dog, to eat alone." She expected to eat with the folks
+where she hired. However, her presence at the table did not prevent her
+from waiting on the others. She made frequent trips to the other side
+of the big kitchen to replenish any of the depleted dishes.
+
+That evening Amanda and Philip were restless.
+
+"What ails you two?" demanded Millie. "Bet you're up to some tricks
+again, by the gigglin' of you and the rutchin' around you're doin'! I
+just bet you're up to something," she grumbled, but her eyes twinkled.
+
+"Nothin' ails us," declared Phil. "We just feel like laughin'."
+
+"Ach," said Aunt Rebecca, "this dumb laughin' is all for nothin'.
+Anyhow, you better not laugh too much, for you got to cry as much as
+you laugh before you die."
+
+"Then I'll have to cry oceans!" Amanda admitted. "There'll be another
+Niagara Falls, right here in Lancaster County, I'm thinkin'."
+
+"Ach," said Millie, "that's just another of them old superstitions."
+
+"Yes," Aunt Rebecca said solemnly, "nobody believes them no more. But
+it's a lot of truth in 'em just the same. I often took notice that as
+high as the spiders build their webs in August so high will the snow be
+that winter. Nowadays people don't study the almanac or look for signs.
+Young ones is by far too smart. The farmers plant their seeds any time
+now, beans and peas in the Posey Woman sign and then they wonder why
+they get only flowers 'stead of peas and beans. They take up red beets
+in the wrong sign and wonder why the beets cook up stringy. The women
+make sauerkraut in Gallas week and wonder why it's bitter. I could tell
+them what's the matter! There's more to them old women's signs than
+most people know. I never yet heard a dog cry at night that I didn't
+hear of some one I know dyin' soon after. I wouldn't open an umbrella
+in the house for ten dollars--it's bad luck--yes, you laugh," she said
+accusingly to Philip. "But you got lots to learn yet. My goodness, when
+I think of all I learned since I was as old as you! Of all the new
+things in the world! I guess till you're as old as I am there'll be
+lots more."
+
+"Sure Mike," said the boy, rather flippantly. "What's all new since you
+was little?" he asked his aunt.
+
+"Telephone, them talkin' machines, sewin' machines--anyhow, they were
+mighty scarce then--trolleys----"
+
+"Automobiles?"
+
+"My goodness, yes! Them awful things! They scare the life out abody. I
+don't go in none and I don't want no automobile hearse to haul me,
+neither. I'd be afraid it'd run off."
+
+"Great horn spoon, Aunt Rebecca, but that would be a gay ride," the boy
+said, while Amanda giggled and Uncle Amos winked to Millie, who made a
+hurried trip to the stove for coffee.
+
+"Ach," came the aunt's rebuke. "You talk too much of that slang stuff.
+I guess I'll take the next trolley home," she said, unconscious of the
+merriment she had caused. "I'd like to help with the dishes, but I want
+to get home before it gets so late for me. Anyhow, Amanda is big enough
+to help. When I was big as her I cooked and baked and worked like a
+woman. Why, when I was just a little thing, Mom'd tell me to go in the
+front room and pick the snipples off the floor and I'd get down and do
+it. Nobody does that now, neither. They run a sweeper over the carpets
+and wear 'em out."
+
+"But the floors are full of germs," said Amanda.
+
+"Cherms--what are them?"
+
+"Why, dreadful things! I learned about them at school. They are little,
+crawly bugs with a lot of legs, and if you eat them or breathe them in
+you'll get scarlet fever or diphtheria."
+
+"Ach, that's too dumb!" Aunt Rebecca was unimpressed. "I don't believe
+in no such things." With that emphatic remark she stalked to the
+sitting-room for her bonnet. She met Phil coming out, his hands in his
+pockets. He paused in the doorway as Amanda and her mother joined the
+guest.
+
+Aunt Rebecca lifted the black silk bonnet carefully from the little
+table and Amanda shifted nervously from one foot to the other. If only
+Aunt Rebecca wouldn't hold the bonnet so the worm would fall to the
+floor! Then the woman gave the stiff headgear a dexterous turn and the
+squirming thing landed on her head.
+
+"My goodness! My goodness!" she cried as something soft brushed her
+cheek. Intently inquisitive, she stooped and picked from the floor a
+fat, green, wriggling tobacco worm.
+
+"One of them cherms, I guess, Amanda, ain't?" she said as she looked
+keenly at the child.
+
+Amanda blushed and was silent. Philip was unable to hide his guilt.
+"Now, when did tobacco worms learn to live in bonnets?" she asked the
+boy as she eyed him reproachfully.
+
+Mrs. Reist looked hurt. Her gentle reproof, "Children, I'm ashamed of
+you!" cut deeper with Amanda than the scolding of Aunt Rebecca--"You're
+a bad pair! Almost you spoiled me my good bonnet. If I'd squeezed that
+worm on my cap it would have ruined it! My goodness, you both need a
+good spankin', that's what. Too bad you ain't got a pop to learn you!"
+
+"It was only for fun, Aunt Rebecca," said Amanda, truly ashamed. But
+Phil put his hand over his mouth to hide a grin.
+
+"Fun--what for fun is that--to be so disrespectful to an old aunt? And
+you, Philip, ain't one bit ashamed. Your mom just ought to make you
+hunt all the worms in the whole tobacco patch. My goodness, look at
+that clock! Next with this dumb foolin' I'll miss that trolley yet. I
+must hurry myself now."
+
+"I'm sorry, Aunt Rebecca," Amanda said softly, eager to make peace with
+the woman, whom she knew to be kind, though a bit severe.
+
+"Ach, I don't hold no spite. But I think it's high time you learn to
+behave. Such a big girl like you ought to help her brother be good, not
+learn him tricks. Boys go to the bad soon enough. I'm goin' now," she
+addressed Mrs. Reist, "and you let me know when you boil apple butter
+and I'll come and help stir."
+
+"All right, Rebecca. I hope the children will behave and not cut up
+like to-day. You are always so ready to help us--I can't understand why
+they did such a thing. I'm ashamed."
+
+"Ach, it's all right, long as my bonnet ain't spoiled. If that had
+happened then there'd be a different kind o' bird pipin'."
+
+After she left Philip proceeded to do a Comanche Indian dance--in which
+Amanda joined by being pulled around the room by her dress skirt--in
+undisguised hilarity over the departure of their grim relative. Boys
+have little understanding of the older person who suppresses their
+animal energy and skylarking happiness.
+
+"I ain't had so much fun since Adam was a boy," Philip admitted with
+pretended seriousness, while the family smiled at his drollness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SNITZING PARTY
+
+
+Apple-butter boiling on the Reist farm occurred frequently during
+August and September. The choice fruit of the orchard was sold at
+Lancaster market, but bushels of smaller, imperfect apples lay
+scattered about the ground, and these were salvaged for the fragrant
+and luscious apple butter. To Phil and Amanda fell the task of
+gathering the fruit from the grass, washing them in big wooden tubs
+near the pump and placing them in bags. Then Uncle Amos hauled the
+apples to the cider press, where they came forth like liquid amber that
+dripped into fat brown barrels.
+
+Many pecks of pared fruit were required for the apple-butter boiling.
+These were pared--the Pennsylvania Dutch say snitzed--the night before
+the day of boiling.
+
+"Mom," Amanda told her mother as they ate supper one night when many
+apples were to be pared for the next day's use, "Lyman Mertzheimer seen
+us pick apples to-day and he said he's comin' over to-night to the
+snitzin' party--d'you care?"
+
+"No. Let him come."
+
+"So," teased Uncle Amos. "Guess in a few years, Manda, you'll be havin'
+beaus. This Lyman Mertzheimer, now,--his pop's the richest farmer round
+here and Lyman's the only child. He'd be a good catch, mebbe."
+
+"Ach," Amanda said in her quick way, "I ain't thinkin' of such things.
+Anyhow, I don't like Lyman so good. He's all the time braggin' about
+his pop's money and how much his mom pays for things, and at school he
+don't play fair at recess. Sometimes, too, he cheats in school when we
+have a spellin' match Friday afternoons. Then he traps head and thinks
+he's smart."
+
+Uncle Amos nodded his head. "Chip o' the old block."
+
+"Now, look here," chided Millie, "ain't you ashamed, Amos, to put such
+notions in a little girl's head, about beaus and such things?"
+
+The man chuckled. "What's born in heads don't need to be put in."
+
+Amanda wondered what he meant, but her mother and Millie laughed.
+
+"Women's women," he added knowingly. "Some wakes up sooner than others,
+that's all! Millie, when you goin' to get you a man? You're gettin'
+along now--just about my age, so I know--abody that cooks like you do--
+"
+
+"Amos, you just keep quiet! I ain't lookin' for a man. I got a home,
+and if I want something to growl at me I'll go pull the dog's tail."
+
+That evening the kitchen of the Reist farmhouse was a busy place.
+Baskets of apples stood on the floor. On the table were huge earthen
+dishes ready for the pared fruit. Equipped with a paring knife and a
+tin pie-plate for parings every member of the household drew near the
+table and began snitzing. There was much merry conversation, some in
+quaint Pennsylvania Dutch, then again in English tinged with the
+distinctive accent. There was also much laughter as Uncle Amos vied
+with Millie for the honor of making the thinnest parings.
+
+"Here comes Lyman. Make place for him," cried Amanda as a boy of
+fifteen came to the kitchen door.
+
+"You can't come in here unless you work," challenged Uncle Amos.
+
+"I can do that," said the boy, though he seemed none too eager to take
+the knife and plate Mrs. Reist offered him.
+
+"You dare sit beside me," Amanda offered.
+
+Lyman smiled his appreciation of the honor, but the girl's eyes
+twinkled as she added, "so I can watch that you make thin peelin's."
+
+"That's it," said Uncle Amos. "Boys, listen! Mostly always when a
+woman's kind to you there's something back of it."
+
+"Ach, Amos, you're soured," said Millie.
+
+"No, not me," he declared. "I know there's still a few good women in
+the world. Ach, yea," he sighed deeply and looked the incarnation of
+misery, "soon I'll have three to boss me, with Amanda here growin' like
+a weed!"
+
+"Don't you know," Mrs. Reist reminded him, "how Granny used to say that
+one good boss is better than six poor workers? You don't appreciate us,
+Amos."
+
+"I give up." Uncle Amos spread his hands in surrender. "I give up. When
+women start arguin' where's a man comin' in at?"
+
+"I wouldn't give up," spoke out Lyman. "A man ought to have the last
+word every time."
+
+"Ach, you don't know women," said Uncle Amos, chuckling.
+
+"A man was made to be master," the youth went on, evidently quoting
+some recent reading. "Woman is the weaker vessel."
+
+"Wait till you try to break one," came Uncle Amos's wise comment.
+
+"I," said Lyman proudly, "I could be master of any woman I marry! And I
+bet, I dare to bet my pop's farm, that any girl I set out to get I can
+get, too. I'd just carry her off or something. 'All's fair in love and
+war.'"
+
+"Them two's the same thing, sonny, but you don't know it yet," laughed
+Uncle Amos. "It sounds mighty strong and brave to talk like you were a
+giant or king, or something, and I only hope I'm livin' and here in
+Crow Hill so I can see how you work that game of carryin' off the girl
+you like. I'd like to see it, I'd sure like to see it!"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Amos, tell us, did you ever go to see the girls?" asked
+Amanda eagerly.
+
+"Did I ever go to see the girls? Um-uh, I did!" The man laughed
+suddenly. "I'll tell you about the first time. But now you just go on
+with your snitzin'. I can't be breakin' up the party with my yarns. I
+was just a young fellow workin' at home on the farm. Theje was a nice
+girl over near Manheim I thought I'd like to know better, and so one
+night I fixed up to try my luck and go see her. It was in fall and got
+dark pretty early, and by the time I was done with the farm work and
+dressed in my best suit and half-way over to her house, it was gettin'
+dusk. Now I never knew what it was to be afraid till that year my old
+Aunty Betz came to spend a month with us and began to tell her spook
+stories. She had a long list of them. One was about a big black dog
+that used to come in her room every night durin' full moon and put its
+paws on her bed. But when she tried to touch it there was nothing
+there, and if she'd get up and light the light it would vanish. She
+said she always thought he wanted to show her something, take her to
+where there was some gold buried, but she never could get the dog to do
+it, for she always lighted the light and that scared him away. Then she
+said one time they moved into a little house, and once when they had a
+lot of company she slept on a bed in the garret. She got awake at night
+and found the covers off the bed. She pulled 'em up and something
+pulled them off. Then she lighted a candle, but there wasn't a thing
+there. So she went back to bed and the same thing happened again; down
+went the covers. She got frightened and ran down the stairs and slept
+on the floor. But that spook was always a mystery. I used to have
+shivers chasin' each other up and down my back so fast I didn't know
+how to sit up hardly when she was tellin' them spook stories. But she
+had one champion one about a man she knew who was walkin' along the
+country road at night and something black shot up in front of him, and
+when he tried to catch it and ran after it, he rolled into a fence, and
+when he sat up, the spook was gone, but there was a great big hole by
+the fence-post near him, and in the hole was a box of money. She could
+explain that ghost; it was the spirit of the person who had buried the
+money, and he had to help some person find it so that he could have
+peace in the other world. Well, as I said, I was goin' along the road
+on the way to see that girl, and it was about dark when I got to the
+lane of her house. I was a little excited, for it was my first trial at
+the courtin' business. Aunty Betz's spook stories made me kinda shaky
+in the dark, so it's no wonder I jumped when something black ran across
+the road and stood by the fence as I came along. I remembered her story
+of the man who found the gold, and I thought I'd see whether I could
+have such luck, so I ran to the black thing and made a grab--and--it
+was a skunk! Well,"--after the laughter died down--"I didn't get any
+gold, but I got something! I yelled, and the girl I started to call on
+heard me and come to the door. I hadn't any better sense than to go up
+to her. But before I could explain, the skunk's weapon told the tale.
+'You clear out of here,' she hollered; 'who wants such a smell in the
+house!' I cleared out, and when I got home Mom was in bed, but Pop was
+readin' the paper in the kitchen. I opened the door. 'Clear out of
+here,' he ordered;' who wants such a smell in the house! Go to the
+wood-shed and I'll get you soap and water and other clothes.' So I went
+to the wood-shed, and he came out with a lantern and water and clothes
+and I began to scrub. After I was dressed we went to the barn-yard and
+he held the lantern while I dug a deep hole, and the clothes, my best
+Sunday clothes, went down into the ground and dirt on top. And that
+settled courtin' for a while with me."
+
+Uncle Amos's story _had_ interfered with the snitzing.
+
+"Say," said Millie, "how can abody snitz apples when you make 'em laugh
+till the tears run down over the face?"
+
+"Oh, come on," cried Amanda, "I just thought of it--let's tell fortunes
+with the peelin's! Everybody peel an apple with the peelin' all in one
+piece and then throw it over the right shoulder, and whatever letter it
+makes on the floor is the initial of the person you're goin' to marry."
+
+"All right. Now, Millie, no cheatin'," teased Uncle Amos. "Don't you go
+peel yours so it'll fall into a Z, for I know that Zach Miller's been
+after you this long while already."
+
+"Ach, him? He's as ugly as seven days' rainy weather."
+
+"Ach, shoot it," said Phil, disgust written on his face as he threw a
+paring over his shoulder; "mine always come out an S. Guess that's the
+only letter you can make. S for Sadie, Susie--who wants them? That's a
+rotten way to tell fortunes!"
+
+"Now look at mine, everybody!" cried Amanda as she flung her long apple
+paring over her shoulder.
+
+"It's an M," shouted Phil. "Mebbe for Martin Landis. Jiminy Christmas,
+he's a pretty nice fellow. If you can hook him----"
+
+"M stands for Mertzheimer," said Lyman proudly. "I guess it means me,
+Amanda, so you better begin to mind me now when we play at recess at
+school and spell on my side in the spelling matches."
+
+"Huh," she retorted ungraciously, "Lyman Mertzheimer, you ain't the
+only M in Lancaster County!"
+
+"No," he replied arrogantly, "but I guess that poor Mart Landis don't
+count. He's always tending one of his mom's babies--some nice beau he'd
+make! If he ever goes courting he'll have to take along one of the
+little Landis kids, I bet."
+
+Phil laughed, but Amanda flushed in anger. "I think that's just grand
+of Martin to help his mom like that," she defended. "Anyhow, since she
+has no big girls to help her."
+
+"He washes dishes. I saw him last week with an apron on," said Lyman,
+contempt in his voice.
+
+"Wouldn't you do that for your mom if she was poor and had a lot of
+children and no one to help her?" asked the girl.
+
+"Not me! I wouldn't wash dishes for no one! Men aren't made for that."
+
+"Then _I_ don't think much of _you_, Lyman Mertzheimer!"
+declared Amanda with a vigorous toss of her red head.
+
+"Come, come," Mrs. Reist interrupted, "you mustn't quarrel. Of course
+Lyman would help his mother if she needed him."
+
+Amanda laughed and friendliness was once more restored.
+
+When the last apple was snitzed Uncle Amos brought some cold cider from
+the spring-house, Millie fetched a dish of cookies from the cellar, and
+the snitzing party ended in a feast.
+
+That night Mrs. Reist followed Amanda up the stairs to the child's
+bedroom. They made a pretty picture as they stood there, the mother
+with her plain Mennonite garb, her sweet face encircled by a white cap,
+and the little red-haired child, eager, active, her dark eyes glimpsing
+dreams as they focused on the distant castles in Spain which were a
+part of her legitimate heritage of childhood. The room was like a
+Nutting picture, with its rag carpet, old-fashioned, low cherry bed,
+covered with a pink and white calico patchwork quilt, its low cherry
+bureau, its rush-bottom chairs, its big walnut chest covered with a
+hand-woven coverlet gay with red roses and blue tulips. An old-
+fashioned room and an old-fashioned mother and daughter--the elder had
+seen life, knew its glories and its dangers, had tasted its sweetness
+and drained its cups of sorrow, but the child--in her eyes was still
+the star-dust of the "trailing clouds of glory."
+
+"Mom," she asked suddenly as her mother unbraided the red hair and
+brushed it, "do you like Lyman Mertzheimer?"
+
+"Why--yes---" Mrs. Reist hesitated.
+
+"Ach, I don't mean that way, Mom," the child said wisely. "You always
+say abody must like everybody, but I mean like him for real, like him
+so you want to be near him. He's good lookin'. At school he's about the
+best lookin' boy there. The big girls say he's a regular Dunnis,
+whatever that is. But I think sometimes he ain't so pretty under the
+looks, the way he acts and all, Mom."
+
+"I know what you mean, Amanda. Your pop used to say still that people
+are like apples, some can fool you good. Remember some we peeled
+to-night were specked and showed it on the outside, but some were
+red and pretty and when you cut in them--"
+
+"They were full of worms or rotten!"
+
+"Yes. It's the hearts of people that makes them beautiful."
+
+"I see, Mom, and I'll mind to remember that. I'm gettin' to know a lot
+o' things now, Mom, ain't? I like when you tell me things my pop said.
+I'm glad I was big enough to remember him. I know yet what nice eyes he
+had, like they was always smilin' at you. I wish he wouldn't died, but
+I'm glad he's not dead for always. People don't stay dead like peepies
+or birds, do they?"
+
+"No, they'll live again some day." The mother's voice was low, but a
+divine trust shone in her eyes. "Life would be nothing if it could end
+for us like it does for the birds."
+
+"Millie says the souls of people can't die. That it's with people just
+like it's with the apple trees. In winter they look dead and like all
+they're good for was to chop down and burn, then in spring they get
+green and the flowers come on them and they're alive, and we know
+they're alive. I'm glad people are like that, ain't you?"
+
+"Yes." She gathered the child to her arms and kissed the sensitive,
+eager little face. Neither Mrs. Reist nor Amanda, as yet, had read
+Locksley Hall, but the truth expressed there was echoing in their
+souls:
+
+  "Gone forever! Ever? no--for since our dying race began,
+  Ever, ever, and forever was the leading light of man.
+  Indian warriors dream of ampler hunting grounds beyond the night;
+  Even the black Australian dying hopes he shall return, a white.
+  Truth for truth, and good for good! The good, the true, the pure, the
+    just--
+  Take the charm 'Forever' from them, and they crumble into dust."
+
+"Ach, Mom," the child asked a few moments later, "do you mind that
+Christmas and the big doll?" An eager light dwelt in the little girl's
+eyes as she thought back to the happy time when her big, laughing
+father had made one in the family circle.
+
+"Yes." The mother smiled a bit sadly. But Amanda prattled on gaily.
+
+"That was the best Christmas ever I had! You mind how we went to market
+in Lancaster, Pop and you and I, near Christmas, and in a window of a
+store we saw a great, grand, big doll. She was bigger'n me and had
+light hair and blue eyes. I wanted her, and I told you and Pop and
+coaxed for you to buy her. Next week when we went to market and passed
+the store she was still in the window. Then one day Pop went to
+Lancaster alone and when he came home I asked if the doll was still
+there, and he said she wasn't in the window. I cried, and was so
+disappointed and you said to Pop, 'That's a shame, Philip.' And I
+thought, too, it was a shame he let somebody else buy that doll when I
+wanted it so. Then on Christmas morning--what do you think--I came
+down-stairs and ran for my presents, and there was that same big doll
+settin' on the table in the room! Millie and you had dressed her in a
+blue dress. Course she wasn't in the window when I asked Pop, for he
+had bought her! He laughed, and we all laughed, and we had the best
+Christmas. I sat on my little rocking-chair and rocked her, and then
+I'd sit her on the sofa and look at her--I was that proud of her."
+
+"That's five, six years ago, Amanda."
+
+"Yes, I was _little_ then. I mind a story about that little
+rockin'-chair, too, Mom. It's up in the garret now; I'm too big for it.
+But when I first got it I thought it was wonderful fine. Once Katie
+Hiestand came here with her mom, and we were playin' with our dolls and
+not thinkin' of the chair, and then Katie saw it and sat in it. And
+right aways I wanted to set in it, too, and I made her get off. But you
+saw it and you told me I must not be selfish, but must be polite and
+let her set in it. My, I remember lots of things."
+
+"I'm glad, Amanda, if you remember such things, for I want you to grow
+up into a nice, good woman."
+
+"Like you and Millie, ain't? I'm goin' to. I ain't forgot, neither,
+that once when I laughed at Katie for saying the Dutch word for
+calendar and gettin' all her English mixed with Dutch, you told me it's
+not nice to laugh at people. But I forgot it the other day, Mom, when
+we laughed at Aunt Rebecca and treated her mean. But she's so cranky
+and--and---"
+
+"And she helped sew on your dresses," added the mother.
+
+"Now that was ugly for us to act so! Why, ain't it funny, Mom, it
+sounds so easy to say abody should be kind and yet sometimes it's so
+hard to do it. When Aunt Rebecca comes next time I'm just goin' to see
+once if I can't be nice to her."
+
+"Of course you are. She's comin' to-morrow to help with the apple
+butter. But now you must go to sleep or you can't get up early to see
+Millie put the cider on. Philip, he's asleep this long while already."
+
+A few minutes later the child was in bed and called a last good-night
+to the mother, who stood in the hall, a little lighted lamp in her
+hand. Amanda had an eye for beauty and the picture of her mother
+pleased her.
+
+"Ach, Mom," she called, "just stand that way a little once, right
+there."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Ach, you look wonderful like a picture I saw once, in that gray dress
+and the lamp in your hand. It's pretty."
+
+"Now, now," chided the mother gently, "you go to sleep now.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night," Amanda called after the retreating figure.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BOILING APPLE BUTTER
+
+
+Amanda rose early the next morning. Apple-butter boiling day was
+always a happy one for her. She liked to watch the fire under the big
+copper kettle, to help with the ceaseless stirring with a long-handled
+stirrer. She thrilled at the breathless moment when her mother tested
+the thick, dark contents of the kettle and announced, "It's done."
+
+At dawn she went up the stairs with Uncle Amos to the big attic and
+opened and closed doors for him as he carried the heavy copper kettle
+down to the yard. Then she made the same trip with Millie and helped to
+carry from the attic heavy stone crocks in which to store the apple
+butter.
+
+After breakfast she went out to the grassy spot in the rear of the
+garden where an iron tripod stood and began to gather shavings and
+paper in readiness for the fire. She watched Millie scour the great
+copper kettle until its interior shone, then it was lifted on the
+tripod, the cider poured into it, and the fire started. Logs were fed
+to the flames until a roaring fire was in blast. Several times Millie
+skimmed the foam from the cider.
+
+"This is one time when signs don't work," the hired girl confided to
+the child. "Your Aunt Rebecca says that if you cook apple butter in the
+up-sign of the almanac it boils over easy, but it's the down-sign
+to-day, and yet this cider boils up all the time."
+
+"I guess it'll all burn in the bottom," said Amanda, "if it's the
+down-sign."
+
+"Not if you stir it good when the snitz are in. That's the time the
+work begins. Here's your mom and Philip."
+
+"Ach, Mom,"--Amanda ran to meet her mother--"this here's awful much
+fun! I wish we'd boil apple butter every few days."
+
+"Just wait once," said Millie, "till you're a little bigger and want to
+go off to picnics or somewhere and got to stay home and help to stir
+apple butter. Then you'll not like it so well. Why, Mrs. Hershey was
+tellin' me last week how mad her girls get still if the apple butter's
+got to be boiled in the hind part of the week when they want to be done
+and dressed and off to visit or to Lancaster instead of gettin' their
+eyes full of smoke stirrin' apple butter."
+
+Mrs. Reist laughed.
+
+"But," Amanda said with a tender glance at the hired girl, "I guess
+Hershey's ain't got no Millie like we to help."
+
+"Ach, pack off now with you," Millie said, trying to frown. "I got to
+stop this spoilin' you. You don't think I'd stand in the hot sun and
+stir apple butter while you go off on a picnic or so when you're big
+enough to help good?"
+
+"But that's just what you would do! I know you! Didn't you spend almost
+your whole Christmas savin' fund on me and Phil last year?"
+
+"Ach, you talk too much! Let me be, now, I got to boil apple butter."
+
+Philip ran for several boxes and old chairs and put them under a
+spreading cherry tree. "We take turns stirrin'," he explained, "so
+those that don't stir can take it easy while they wait their turn.
+Jiminy Christmas, guess we'll have a regular party to-day. All of us
+are in it, and Aunt Rebecca's comin', and Lyman Mertzheimer, and I
+guess Martin Landis, and mebbe some of the little Landis ones and the
+whole Crow Hill will be here. Here comes Millie with the snitz!"
+
+The pared apples were put into the kettle, then the stirring commenced.
+A long wooden stirrer, with a handle ten feet long, was used, the big
+handle permitting the stirrer to stand a comfortable distance from the
+smoke and fire.
+
+The boiling was well under way when Aunt Rebecca arrived.
+
+"My goodness, Philip," she began as soon as she neared the fire, "you
+just stir half! You must do it all around the bottom of the kettle or
+the butter'll burn fast till it's done. Here, let me do it once." She
+took the handle from his hands and began to stir vigorously.
+
+"Good!" cried the boy. "Now we can roast apples. Here, comes Lyman up
+the road, and Martin Landis and the baby. Now we'll have some fun!" He
+pointed to the toad, where Martin Landis, a neighbor boy, drew near
+with his two-year-old brother on his arm.
+
+"But you keep away from the fire," ordered Aunt Rebecca.
+
+The children ran off to the yard to greet the newcomers and soon came
+back joined by Lyman and Martin and the ubiquitous baby.
+
+"I told you," Lyman said with mocking smiles, "that Martin would have
+to bring the baby along."
+
+Martin Landis was fifteen, but hard work and much responsibility had
+added to him wisdom and understanding beyond his years. His frank,
+serious face could at times assume the look of a man of ripened
+experience. At Lyman's words it burned scarlet. "Ach, go on," he said
+quietly; "it'd do you good if you had a few to carry around; mebbe then
+you wouldn't be such a dude."
+
+That brought the laugh at the expense of the other boy, who turned
+disdainfully away and walked to Aunt Rebecca with an offer to stir the
+apple butter.
+
+"No, I'll do it," she said in a determined voice.
+
+"Give me the baby," said Mrs. Reist, "then you children can go play."
+The little tot ran to her outstretched arms and was soon laughing at
+her soft whispers about young chickens to feed and ducks to see.
+
+"Now," Amanda cried happily, "since Mom keeps the baby we'll roast corn
+and apples under the kettle."
+
+In spite of Aunt Rebecca's protest, green corn and ripe apples were
+soon encased in thick layers of mud and poked upon the glowing bed
+under the kettle.
+
+"Abody'd think none o' you had breakfast," she said sternly.
+
+"Ach," said Mrs. Reist, "these just taste better because they're
+wrapped in mud. I used to do that at home when I was little."
+
+"Well, I never did. They'll get burned yet with their foolin' round the
+fire."
+
+Her prophecy came perilously close to fulfilment later in the day.
+Amanda, bending near the fire to turn a mud-coated apple, drew too
+close to the lurking flames. Her gingham dress was ready fuel for the
+fire. Suddenly a streak of flame leaped up the hem of it. Aunt Rebecca
+screamed. Lyman cried wildly, "Where's some water?" But before Mrs.
+Reist could come to the rescue Martin Landis had caught the frightened
+child and thrown her flat into a dense bed of bean vines near by,
+smothering the flames.
+
+Then he raised her gently. Much handling of his younger sisters and
+brothers had made him adept with frightened children.
+
+"Come, Manda," he said soothingly, "you're not hurt. Just your dress is
+burned a little."
+
+"My hand--it's burned, I guess," she faltered.
+
+Again force of habit swayed Martin. He bent over and kissed the few red
+marks on her fingers as he often kissed the bumped heads and scratched
+fingers of the little Landis children.
+
+"Ach--" Amanda's hand fluttered under the kiss.
+
+Then a realization of what he had done came to the boy. "Why," he
+stammered, "I didn't mean--I guess I oughtn't done that--I wasn't
+thinking, Manda."
+
+"Ach, Martin, it's all right. You didn't hurt it none." She
+misunderstood him. "See, it ain't hurt bad at all. But, Martin, you
+scared me when you threw me in that bean patch! But it put the fire
+out. You're smart to think of that so quick."
+
+"Oh, yes," Mrs. Reist found her voice, and the color crept back to her
+cheeks again. "Martin, I can't thank you enough."
+
+"Um," Lyman said sneeringly, "now I suppose Martin's a hero."
+
+"So he is!" said the little girl with decision. "He saved my life, and
+I ain't forgettin' it neither." Then she sat down by her mother's side
+and began to play with the baby.
+
+"Well, guess the fun's over," said Lyman. "You went and spoiled it by
+catching fire." He went off in sulky mood.
+
+"My goodness," exclaimed Aunt Rebecca, "mebbe now you'll keep away from
+this fire once."
+
+Amanda kept away. The fun of the apple-butter boiling was ended for
+her. She sat quietly under the tree while Millie and Aunt Rebecca and
+Phil took turns at stirring. She watched passively while Millie poured
+pounds of sugar into the boiling mass. She even missed the customary
+thrill as some of the odorous contents of the kettle were tested and
+the verdict came, "It's done!" The thrills of apple-butter boiling were
+as nothing to her now. She still felt the wonder of being rescued from
+the fire, rescued by a nice boy with a strong arm and a gentle voice--
+what if it was only a boy she had known all her life!--her heart
+enshrined its first hero that day.
+
+She forgot the terror that had seized her as the flames licked up her
+dress, the scorching touch on her hand was obliterated from her memory
+and only the healing gentleness of the kiss remained.
+
+"He kissed my hand," she thought that night as she lay under her
+patchwork quilt. "It was just like the stories we read about in school
+about the 'knights of old that were brave and bold.'"
+
+She thought of the picture on the schoolhouse wall. Sir Galahad, the
+teacher had called it, and read those lovely lines that Amanda
+remembered and liked--"My strength is as the strength of ten because my
+heart is pure."
+
+Martin was like that!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A VISIT TO MARTIN'S MOTHER
+
+
+When Amanda awoke the next morning her first thought was of the burnt
+hand and its healing kiss. "Why, Martin--ach, Martin--he kissed my
+hand," she said softly to herself. "Just like they do in the stories
+about knights--knights always kiss their ladies' hands. Ach, I know
+what I'll do! I'll play Martin Landis is my knight and I'm his lady
+grand. Wish Mom was here, then I'd ask her if she knows anything about
+what knights do and how the ladies ought to act to them. But she's in
+Lancaster. Mebbe Millie would know. I'll go ask her once."
+
+Millie was baking pies when the girl sought her for the information.
+
+"Say, Millie!"
+
+"Ach, what?" The hired girl brushed the flour from her bare arms and
+turned to look at Amanda. "Now I know what you want--you smell the pies
+and you want a half-moon sample to eat before it's right cold and get
+your stomach upset and your face all pimply. Ain't?"
+
+"No," began the child, then added diplomatically, "why, yes, I do want
+that, but that ain't what I come for."
+
+Millie laughed. "Then what? But don't bother me for long. I got lots to
+do yet. I want to get the pies all done till your mom gets back."
+
+"Why, Millie, I wondered, do you know anything about knights?"
+
+"Not me. I sleep nights."
+
+"Ach, Millie--knights--the kind you read about, the men that wear
+plumes in their hats."
+
+"Feathers, you mean? Why, the only man I ever heard of wearin' a
+feather in his hat was Yankee Doodle."
+
+"Ach, Millie, you make me mad! But I guess you don't know. Well, tell
+me this--if somebody did something for you and you wanted to show you
+'preciated it, what would you do?"
+
+"That's an easy one! I'd be nice to them and do things for them or for
+their people. Now you run and let me be. 'Bout half an hour from now
+you dare come in for your half-moon pie. Ach, I most forgot! Your mom
+said you shall take a little crock of the new apple butter down to Mrs.
+Landis."
+
+"A little crock won't go far with all them children."
+
+"Ach, yes. It'll smear a lot o' bread. I'll pack it in a basket so you
+can carry it easy. Better put on your sunbonnet so your hair won't burn
+red."
+
+[Illustration: The rhubarb leaf parasol]
+
+"Redder, you mean, ain't? But I won't need a bonnet. I'll take my new
+parasol."
+
+"Parasol," echoed Millie. "Now what---"
+
+But Amanda ran away, laughing, and returned in a few minutes holding a
+giant rhubarb leaf over her head. "Does the green silk of my parasol
+look good with my hair?" she asked with an exaggerated air of grandeur.
+
+"Go on, now," Millie said, laughing, "and don't spill that apple butter
+or you'll get parasol."
+
+With a merry good-bye Amanda set off, the basket upon her arm, one hand
+grasping the red stem of the rhubarb parasol while the great green leaf
+flopped up and down upon her head in cool ministration.
+
+Down the sunny road she trudged, spasmodically singing bits of gay
+songs, then again talking to herself. "This here is a dandy parasol.
+Cooler'n a real one and lots nicer'n a bonnet or a hat. Only I wish it
+was bigger, so my arms would be covered, for it's hot out to-day."
+
+When she reached the little red brick country schoolhouse, half-way
+between her home and the Landis farm, she paused in the shade of a
+great oak that grew in the school-yard.
+
+"Guess I'll rest the apple butter a while in this shade," she said to
+herself, "and pick a bouquet for my knight's mom."  From the grassy
+roadside she gathered yellow and gold butter-and-eggs, blue spikes of
+false dragon's head, and edged them with a lacy ruffle of wild carrot
+flowers.
+
+"There, that's grand!" she said as she held the bouquet at arm's length
+and surveyed it carefully. "I'll hold it out, just so, and I'll say to
+Mrs. Landis, 'Mother of my knight, I salute you!' I know she'll be
+surprised. Mebbe I might tell her just how brave her Martin is and how
+I made him a knight. She'll be glad. It must be a satisfaction to have
+a boy a knight." She smiled in happy anticipation of the wonderful
+message she was going to bring Mrs. Landis. Then she replaced the
+rhubarb parasol over her head, picked up the basket, and went down the
+country road to the Landis farm.
+
+"It's good Landis's don't live far from our place," she thought. "My
+parasol's wiltin'."
+
+Like the majority of houses in the Crow Hill section of country, the
+Landis house was set in a frame of green trees and old-fashioned flower
+gardens. It flaunted in the face of the passer-by an old-time front
+yard. The wide brick walk that led straight from the gate to the big
+front porch was edged on both sides with a row of bricks placed corners
+up. On either side of the walk were bushes, long since placed without
+the discriminating eye of a landscape gardener but holding in their
+very randomness a charm unrivaled by any precise planting. Mock-orange
+bushes and lilacs towered above the low deutzias, while masses of
+zinnias, petunias, four-o'clocks, and a score of other old-fashioned
+posies crowded against each other in the long beds that edged the walks
+and in the smaller round beds that were dotted here and there in the
+grass. Jaded motorists from the city drove their cars slowly past the
+glory of the Landis riot of blossoms.
+
+As Amanda neared the place she looked ruefully at her knot of wild
+flowers. "She's got so many pretty ones," she thought. "But, ach, I
+guess she'll like these here, too, long as they're a present."
+
+Two of the Landis children ran to greet Amanda as she opened the gate
+and entered the yard.
+
+"I'll lay my parasol by the gate," she said. "Where's your mom?"
+
+"In the kitchen, cannin' blackberries," said little Henry.
+
+As Amanda rounded the corner of the house, the two children clinging to
+her arm, Mrs. Landis came to the kitchen door.
+
+"Mother of my knight, I salute you," said Amanda, making as low a bow
+as the two barnacle children, the bouquet and the basket with its crock
+of apple butter, would allow.
+
+"What," laughed Mrs. Landis. "Now what was that you said? The children
+make so much noise I can't hear sometimes. Henry, don't hang so on
+Amanda's arm, it's too hot."
+
+"I said--why, I said--I have some apple butter for you that Mom sent
+and I picked a bouquet for you," the child replied, her courage
+suddenly gone from her.
+
+"Now, ain't that nice! Come right in." The woman held the screen door
+open for the visitor.
+
+Mrs. Landis, mother of the imaginary knight and of six other children,
+was a sturdy, well-built woman, genial and good-natured, as stout
+people are reputed to be. In spite of hard work she retained a look of
+youthfulness about her which her plain Mennonite dress and white cap
+accentuated. An artist with an appreciative eye might have said that
+the face of that mother was like a composite picture of all the
+Madonnas of the old masters--tender, love-lighted yet far-seeing and
+reverent.
+
+Amanda had always loved Mrs. Landis and spent many hours in her home,
+attracted by the baby--there always was one, either in arms or just
+wobbling about on chubby little legs.
+
+"Now ain't it nice of your mom to send us that new apple butter! And
+for you to pick the flowers for me! Sattie for both. I say still that
+the wild flowers beat the ones on the garden beds. And how pretty you
+fixed them!"
+
+"Mom, Mom," whispered little Henry, "dare I smear me a piece of bread?"
+
+"Yes, if you don't make crumbs."
+
+"Oh, Mom," cried Mary Landis, who came running in from the yard. "What
+d'you think? Manda left her green parasol out by the front gate and
+Henry's chewed the handle off of it!"
+
+"Chewed the handle off a parasol--what--how?" said the surprised
+mother.
+
+Amanda laughed. "But don't you worry about it, Mrs. Landis," she said,
+"for it was a rhubarb parasol."
+
+"Oh!" A merry laugh followed the announcement about the edible parasol
+handle and Mrs. Landis went back to spreading thick slices of bread
+with apple butter while three pairs of eager hands were reaching out to
+her.
+
+A tiny wail which soon grew in volume sounded from a room in the front
+of the house.
+
+"The baby's awake," said Amanda. "Dare I fetch him?"
+
+"Yes. Go right in."
+
+Amanda went through two rooms and came to a semi-darkened side room
+where the smallest Landis was putting forth a loud protest at his
+fancied neglect.
+
+"Come on, Johnny, don't cry no more. Manda's goin' to take you--see!"
+She raised the baby, who changed from crying to laughter.
+
+"Ain't he dear!" Amanda said as she brought the baby into the kitchen.
+"And so bright he is for not quite six months old. I remember how old
+he is because it was on my mom's last birthday in March that Millie
+said you had another baby and I remember, too, that Aunt Rebecca was
+there and she said, 'What, them Landis's got another baby! Poor thing!'
+I asked Mom why she said that and she thought Aunt Rebecca meant that
+babies make so much work for you."
+
+"Ach, abody works anyhow, might as well work tendin' babies. Put your
+cheek against Johnny's face once, Amanda."
+
+Amanda bent her head and touched the soft cheek of the child. "Why,"
+she said, "ain't it soft, now! Ain't babies just too dear and sweet! I
+guess Aunt Rebecca don't know how nice they are."
+
+"Poor thing," said Mrs. Landis.
+
+"Poor--she ain't poor!" Amanda corrected her. "She owns two farms and
+got lots of money besides."
+
+"But no children--poor thing," repeated Mrs. Landis.
+
+Amanda looked at her, wondering.
+
+"Amanda," said the white-capped mother as she wiped some blackberry
+juice from little Henry's fingers, "abody can have lots of money and
+yet be poor, and others can have hardly any money and yet be rich. It's
+all in what abody means by rich and what kind of treasures you set
+store by. I wouldn't change places with your rich Aunt Rebecca for all
+the farms in Lancaster County."
+
+"Well, I guess not!" Amanda could understand her attitude. "And Mom and
+Millie say still you got such nice children. But Martin now," she said
+with assumed seriousness as she saw him step on the porch to enter the
+kitchen--"your Martin pushed me in a bean patch yesterday and I fell
+down flat on my face."
+
+"Martin!" his mother began sternly. "What for did you act so?"
+
+"Amanda, don't you tell!" the boy commanded, his face flushing. "Don't
+you dare tell!"
+
+"I got to now, I started it. Ach, Mrs. Landis, you dare be proud of
+him! My dress caught fire and none of us had sense but him. He
+smothered it by throwin' me in the bean patch and he--he's a hero!"
+
+"A hero!" cried little Henry. "Mart's a hero!" while the mother smiled
+proudly.
+
+"Manda Reist," Martin spoke quickly as he edged to the door. "Amanda
+Reist, next time--next time I'll--darn it, I'll just let you burn up!"
+He ran from the room and disappeared round the corner of the house.
+
+"Why"--Amanda's lips trembled--"ain't he mean! I just wanted to be nice
+to him and he got mad."
+
+"Don't mind him," soothed the mother. "Boys are funny. He's not mad at
+you, he just don't like too much fuss made over what he done. But all
+the time he's tickled all over to have you call him a hero."
+
+"Oh--are boys like that? Phil's not. But he ain't a knight. I guess
+knights like to pretend they're very modest even if they're full of
+pride." Mrs. Landis was too busy putting blackberries into the jars to
+catch the import of the child's words. The word knight escaped her
+hearing.
+
+"Well, I must go now," said the small visitor. "I'll come again."
+
+"All right, do, Amanda."
+
+She put the baby in its coach, took up the empty basket, and after
+numerous good-byes to the children went down the road to her home. The
+rhubarb parasol gone, the sun beat upon her uncovered head but she was
+unmindful of the intense heat. Her brain was wholly occupied with
+thoughts of Martin Landis and his strange behavior.
+
+"Umph," she decided finally, "men _are_ funny things! I'm just
+findin' it out. And I guess knights are queerer'n others yet! Wonder if
+Millie kept my half-moon pie or if Phil sneaked it. Abody's just got to
+watch out for these men folks!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+AT AUNT REBECCA'S HOUSE
+
+
+Several weeks after the eventful apple-butter boiling at the Reist
+farm, Aunt Rebecca invited the Reist family to spend a Sunday at her
+home.
+
+"I ain't goin', Mom," Philip announced. "I don't like it there. Dare I
+stay home with Millie?"
+
+"Mebbe Millie wants to come along," suggested his mother.
+
+"Ach, I guess not this time. Just you go and Phil and I'll stay and
+tend the house and feed the chickens and look after things."
+
+"Well, I'm goin'!" spoke up Amanda. "Aunt Rebecca's funny and bossy but
+I like to go to her house, it's so little and cute, everything."
+
+"Cute," scoffed the boy. "Everything's cute to a girl. You dare go, I
+won't! Last time I was there I picked a few of her honeysuckle flowers
+and pulled that stem out o' them to get the drop of honey that's in
+each one, and she caught me and slapped my hand--mind you! Guess next
+she'll be puttin' up some scare-bees to keep the bees off her flowers.
+But say, Manda, if she gives you any of them little red and white
+striped peppermint candies like she does still, sneak me a few."
+
+"Humph! You don't go to see her but you want her candy! I'd be ashamed,
+Philip Reist!"
+
+"Hush, hush," warned Mrs. Reist. "Next you two'll be fightin', and on a
+Sunday, too."
+
+The girl laughed. "Ach, Mom, guess we both got the tempers that goes
+with red hair. But it's Sunday, so I'll be good. I'm glad we're goin'
+to Aunt Rebecca. That's a nice drive."
+
+Aunt Rebecca lived alone in a cottage at the edge of Landisville, a
+beautiful little town several miles from the Reist farm at Crow Hill.
+During her husband's life they lived on one of the big farms of
+Lancaster County, where she slaved in the manual labor of the great
+fields. Many were the hours she spent in the hot sun of the tobacco
+fields, riding the planter in the early spring, later hoeing the rich
+black soil close to the little young plants, in midsummer finding and
+killing the big green tobacco worms and topping and suckering the
+plants so that added value might be given the broad, strong leaves.
+Then later in the summer she helped the men to thread the harvested
+stalks on laths and hang them in the long open shed to dry.
+
+Aunt Rebecca had married Jonas Miller, a rich man. All the years of
+their life together on the farm seemed a visible verification of the
+old saying, "To him that hath shall be given." A special Providence
+seemed to hover over their acres of tobacco. Storms and destructive
+hail appeared to roam in a swath just outside their farm. The Jonas
+Miller tobacco fields were reputed to be the finest in the whole Garden
+Spot county, and the Jonas Miller bank account grew correspondingly
+fast. But the bank account, however quickly it increased, failed to
+give Jonas Miller and his wife full pleasure, unless, as some say, the
+mere knowledge of possession of wealth can bring pleasure to miserly
+hearts. For Jonas Miller was, in the vernacular of the Pennsylvania
+Dutch, "almighty close." Millie, Reists' hired girl, said," That there
+Jonas is too stingy to buy long enough pants for himself. I bet he gets
+boys' size because they're cheaper, for the legs o' them always just
+come to the top o' his shoes. Whoever lays him out when he's dead once
+will have to put pockets in his shroud for sure! And he's made poor
+Becky just like him. It ain't in her family to be so near; why, Mrs.
+Reist is always givin' somebody something! But mebbe when he dies once
+and his wife gets the money in her hand she'll let it fly."
+
+However, when Jonas Miller died and left the hoarded money to his wife
+she did not let it fly. She rented the big farm and moved to the little
+old-fashioned house in Landisville--a little house whose outward
+appearance might have easily proclaimed its tenant poor. There she
+lived alone, with occasional visits and visitors to break the monotony
+of her existence.
+
+That Sunday morning of the Reist visit, Uncle Amos hitched the horse to
+the carriage, tied it by the front fence of the farm, then he went
+up-stairs and donned his Sunday suit of gray cloth. Later he brought
+out his broad-brimmed Mennonite hat and called to Amanda and her mother,
+"I'm ready. Come along!"
+
+Mrs. Reist wore a black cashmere shawl pinned over her plain gray lawn
+dress and a stiff black silk bonnet was tied under her chin. Amanda
+skipped out to the yard, wearing a white dress with a wide buff sash. A
+matching ribbon was tied on her red hair.
+
+"Jiminy," whistled Uncle Amos as she ran to him and swung her leghorn
+hat on its elastic. "Jiminy, you're pretty---"
+
+"Oh, am I, Uncle Amos?" She smiled radiantly. "Am I really pretty?"
+
+"Hold on, here!" He tried to look very sober. "If you ain't growin' up
+for sure! Lookin' for compliments a'ready, same as all the rest. I was
+goin' to say that you're pretty fancy dressed for havin' a Mennonite
+mom."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Amos!" Amanda laughed and tossed her head so the yellow bow
+danced like a butterfly. "I don't believe you at all! You're too good
+to be findin' fault like that! Millie says so, too."
+
+"She does, eh? She does? Just what does Millie say about me now?"
+
+"Why, she said yesterday that you're the nicest man and have the
+biggest heart of any person she knows."
+
+"Um--so! And Millie says that, does she? Um--so! well, well"--a glow of
+joy spread in his face and stained his neck and ears. Fortunately, for
+his future peace of mind, the child did not notice the flush. A
+swallowtail butterfly had flitted among the zinnias and attracted the
+attention of Amanda so it was diverted from her uncle. But he still
+smiled as Millie opened the front door and she and Mrs. Reist stepped
+on the porch.
+
+Millie, in her blue gingham dress and her checked apron, her straight
+hair drawn back from her plain face, was certainly no vision to cause
+the heart of the average man to pump faster. But as Amos looked at her
+he saw suddenly something lovelier than her face. She walked to the
+gate, smoothing the shawl of Mrs. Reist, patting the buff sash of the
+little girl.
+
+"Big heart," thought Amos, "it's her got the big heart!"
+
+"Good-bye, safe journey," the hired girl called after them as they
+started down the road. "Don't worry about us. Me and Phil can manage
+alone. Good-bye."
+
+The road to Landisville led past green fields of tobacco and corn,
+large farmhouses where old-fashioned flowers made a vivid picture in
+the gardens, orchards and woodland tracts, their green shade calling
+invitingly. Once they crossed a wandering little creek whose shallow
+waters flowed through lovely meadows where boneset plants were white
+with bloom and giant eupatorium lifted its rosy heads. A red-headed
+flicker flew screaming from a field as they passed, and a fussy wren
+scolded at them from a fence corner.
+
+"She'll have a big job," said Uncle Amos, "if she's goin' to scold
+every team and automobile that passes here this mornin'. Such a little
+thing to be so sassy!"
+
+As they came to Landisville and drove into the big churchyard there
+were already many carriages standing in the shade of the long open shed
+and numerous automobiles parked in the sunny yard.
+
+A few minutes later they entered the big brick meeting-house and sat
+down in the calm of the sanctuary. The whispers of newcomers drifted
+through the open windows, steps sounded on the bare floor of the
+church, but finally all had entered and quiet fell upon the place.
+
+The simple service of the Mennonite Church is always appealing and
+helpful. The music of voices, without any accompaniment of musical
+instrument, the simple prayers and sermons, are all devoid of
+ostentation or ornamentation. Amanda liked to join in the singing and
+did so lustily that morning. But during the sermon she often fell to
+dreaming. The quiet meeting-house where only the calm voice of the
+preacher was heard invited the building of wonderful castles in Spain.
+Their golden spires reared high in the blue of heaven... she would be a
+lady in a trailing, silken gown, Martin would come, a plumed and belted
+knight, riding on a pure white steed like that in the Sir Galahad
+picture at school, and he'd repeat to her those beautiful words, "My
+strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure." Was there
+really any truth in that poem? Could one be strong as ten because the
+heart was pure? Of course! It had to be true! Martin could be like
+that. He'd lift her to the saddle on the pure white horse and they'd
+ride away together to one of those beautiful castles in Spain, high up
+on the mountains, so high they seemed above the clouds...
+
+Then she came back to earth suddenly. The meeting was over and Aunt
+Rebecca stood ready to take them to her home.
+
+The country roads were filled with carriages and automobiles; the
+occupants of the former nodded a cordial how-de-do, though most of them
+were strangers, but the riders in the motors sped past without a sign
+of friendliness.
+
+"My goodness," said Aunt Rebecca, "since them automobiles is so common
+abody don't get many how-de-dos no more as you travel along the country
+roads. Used to be everybody'd speak to everybody else they'd meet on
+the road--here, Amos," she laid a restraining hand upon the reins.
+"Stop once! I see a horseshoe layin' in the road and it's got two nails
+in it, too. That's powerful good luck! Stop once and let me get it."
+
+Amos chuckled and with a loud "Whoa" brought the horse to a standstill.
+Aunt Rebecca climbed from the carriage, picked up the trophy of good
+luck and then took her seat beside her brother again, a smile upon her
+lined old face.
+
+"That's three horseshoes I have now. I never let one lay. I pick up all
+I find and take them home and hang them on the old peach tree in the
+back yard. I know they bring good luck. Mebbe if I hadn't picked up all
+them three a lot o' trouble would come to me."
+
+"Have it your way," conceded Uncle Amos. "They don't do you no hurt,
+anyhow. But, Rebecca," he said as they came within sight of her little
+house, "you ought to get your place painted once."
+
+"Ach, my goodness, what for? When it's me here alone. I think the house
+looks nice. My flowers are real pretty this year, once. Course, I don't
+fool with them like you do. I have the kind that don't take much
+tendin' and come up every year without bein' planted. Calico flowers
+and larkspur and lady-slippers are my kind. This plantin' and hoein' at
+flowers is all for nothin'. It's all right to work so at beans and
+potatoes and things you can eat when they grow, but what good are
+flowers but to look at! I done my share of hoein' and diggin' and
+workin' in the ground. I near killed myself when Jonas lived yet, in
+them tobacco patches. I used to say to him still, we needn't work so
+hard and slave like that after we had so much money put away, but he
+was for workin' as long as we could, and so we kept on till he went. He
+used to say money gets all if you begin to spend it and don't earn
+more. Jonas was savin'."
+
+"He sure was, that he was," seconded Uncle Amos with a twinkle in his
+eyes. "Savin' for you and now you're savin' for somebody that'll make
+it fly when you go, I bet. Some day you'll lay down and die and your
+money'll be scattered. If you leave me any, Becky," he teased her,
+"I'll put it all in an automobile."
+
+"What, them wild things! Road-hogs, I heard somebody call 'em, and I
+think it's a good name. My goodness, abody ain't safe no more since
+they come on the streets. They go toot, toot, and you got to hop off to
+one side in the mud or the ditch, it don't matter to them. I hate them
+things! Only don't never take me to the graveyard in one of them."
+
+"By that time," said Uncle Amos, "they'll have flyin' machine hearses;
+they'll go faster."
+
+"My goodness, Amos, how you talk! Ain't you ashamed to make fun at your
+old sister that way! But Mom always said when you was little that you
+seemed a little simple, so I guess you can't help it."
+
+"Na-ha," exulted Amanda, with impish delight. "That's one on you. Aunt
+Rebecca ain't so dumb like she lets on sometimes."
+
+"Ach, no," Aunt Rebecca said, laughing. "'A blind pig sometimes finds
+an acorn, too.'"
+
+Aunt Rebecca's table, though not lavishly laden as are those of most of
+the Pennsylvania Dutch, was amply filled with good, substantial food.
+The fried sausage was browned just right, the potatoes and lima beans
+well-cooked, the cold slaw, with its dash of red peppers, was tasty and
+the snitz pie--Uncle Amos's favorite--was thick with cinnamon, its
+crust flaky and brown.
+
+After the dishes were washed Aunt Rebecca said, "Now then, we'll go in
+the parlor."
+
+"Oh, in the parlor!" exclaimed Amanda. "Why, abody'd think we was
+company. You don't often take us in the parlor."
+
+"Ach, well, you won't make no dirt and I just thought to-day, once, I'd
+take you in the parlor to sit a while. It don't get used hardly. Wait
+till I open the shutters."
+
+She led the way through a little hall to the front room. As she opened
+the door a musty odor came to the hall.
+
+"It smells close," said Aunt Rebecca, sniffing. "But it'll be all right
+till I get some screens in." She pulled the tasseled cords of the green
+shades, opened the slatted shutters, and a flood of summer light
+entered the room. "Ach," she said impatiently as she hammered at one
+window, "I can hardly get this one open still, it sticks itself so."
+But after repeated thumps on the frame she succeeded in raising it and
+placing an old-fashioned sliding screen.
+
+"Now sit down and take it good," she invited.
+
+Uncle Amos sank into an old-fashioned rocker with high back and curved
+arms, built throughout for the solid comfort of its occupants. Mrs.
+Reist chose an old hickory Windsor chair, Aunt Rebecca selected, with a
+sigh of relief, a fancy reed rocker, given in exchange for a book of
+trading stamps.
+
+"This here's the best chair in the house and it didn't cost a cent,"
+she announced as she rocked in it.
+
+Amanda roamed around the room. "I ain't been in here for long. I want
+to look around a little. I like these dishes. I wish we had some like
+them." She tiptoed before a corner cupboard filled with antiques.
+
+"Ach, yes," her aunt answered, "mebbe it looks funny, ain't, to have a
+glass cupboard in the parlor, but I had no other room for it, the house
+is so little. If I didn't think so much of them dishes I'd sold them
+a'ready. That little glass with the rim round the bottom of it I used
+to drink out of it at my granny's house when I was little. Them dark
+shiny dishes like copper were Jonas's mom's. And I like to keep the
+pewter, too, for abody can't buy it these days."
+
+Amanda looked up. On the top shelf of the cupboard was a silver lustre
+pitcher, a teapot of rose lustre, a huge willow platter with its quaint
+blue design, several pewter bowls, a plate with a crude peacock in
+bright colors--an array of antiques that would have awakened
+covetousness in the heart of a connoisseur.
+
+A walnut pie-crust tilt top table stood in one corner of the room, a
+mahogany gateleg occupied the centre, its beauty largely concealed by a
+cover of yellow and white checked homespun linen, upon which rested a
+glass oil lamp with a green paper shade, a wide glass dish filled with
+pictures, an old leather-bound album with heavy brass clasps and
+hinges. A rag carpet, covered in places with hooked rugs, added a
+proper note of harmony, while the old walnut chairs melted into the
+whole like trees in a woodland scene. The whitewashed walls were bare
+save for a large square mirror with a wide mahogany frame, a picture
+holder made from a palm leaf fan and a piece of blue velvet briar
+stitched in yellow, and a cross-stitch canvas sampler framed with a
+narrow braid of horsehair from the tail of a dead favorite of long ago.
+
+"What's pewter made of, Aunt Rebecca?" asked the child.
+
+"Why, of tin and lead. And it's a pity they don't make it and use lots
+of it like they used to long ago. For you can use pewter spoons in
+vinegar and they don't turn black like some of these things that look
+like silver but ain't. Pewter is good ware and I think sometimes that
+the people that lived when it was used so much were way ahead of the
+people to-day. Pewter's the same all through, no thin coatin' of
+something shiny that can wear off and spoil the spoons or dishes. It's
+old style now but it's good and pretty."
+
+"Yes, that's so," agreed Amanda. It was surprising to the little girl
+that the acidulous old aunt could, so unexpectedly, utter beautiful,
+suggestive thoughts. Oh, Aunt Rebecca's house was a wonderful place.
+She must see more of the treasures in the parlor.
+
+Finally her activity annoyed Aunt Rebecca. "My goodness," came the
+command, "you sit down once! Here, look at the album. Mebbe that will
+keep you quiet for a while."
+
+Amanda sat on a low footstool and took the old album on her knees. She
+uttered many delighted squeals of surprise and merriment as she turned
+the thick pages and looked at the pictures of several generations ago.
+A little girl with ruffled pantalets showing below her full skirt and a
+fat little boy with full trousers reaching half-way between his knees
+and his shoetops sent Amanda into a gale of laughter. "Oh, I wish Phil
+was here. What funny people!"
+
+"Let me see once," asked Aunt Rebecca. "Why, that's Amos and your mom."
+
+Mrs. Reist smiled and Uncle Amos chuckled. "We're peaches there, ain't?
+I guess if abody thinks back right you see there were as many crazy
+styles in olden times as there is now."
+
+Tintypes of men and women in peculiar dress of Aunt Rebecca's youth
+called forth much comment and many questions from the interested
+Amanda. "Are there no pictures in here of you?" she asked her aunt.
+
+"Yes, I guess so. On the last page or near there. That one," she said
+as the child found it, a tintype of a young man seated on a vine-
+covered seat and a comely young woman standing beside him, one hand
+laid upon his shoulder.
+
+"And is that Uncle Jonas?"
+
+"No--my goodness, no! That's Martin Landis."
+
+"Martin Landis? Not my--not the Martin Landis's pop that lives near
+us?"
+
+"Yes, that one."
+
+"Why"--Amanda was wide-eyed and curious--"what were you doin' with your
+hand on his shoulder so and your picture taken with him?"
+
+Aunt Rebecca laughed. "Ach, I had dare to do that for we was promised
+then, engaged they say now."
+
+"You were goin' to marry Martin Landis's pop once?" The girl could not
+quite believe it.
+
+"Yes. But he was poor and along came Jonas Miller and he was rich and I
+took him. But the money never done me no good. Mebbe abody shouldn't
+say it, since he's dead, but Jonas was stingy. He'd squeeze a dollar
+till the eagle'd holler. He made me pinch and save till I got so I
+didn't feel right when I spent money. Now, since he's gone, I don't
+know how. I act so dumb it makes me mad at myself sometimes. If I go to
+Lancaster and buy me a whole plate of ice-cream it kinda bothers me. I
+keep wonderin' what Jonas'd think, for he used to say that half a plate
+of cream's enough for any woman. But mebbe it was to be that I married
+Jonas instead of Martin Landis. Martin is a good man but all them
+children--my goodness! I guess I got it good alone in my little house
+long side of Mrs. Landis with all her children to take care of."
+
+Amanda remembered the glory on the face of Mrs. Landis as she had said,
+"Abody can have lots of money and yet be poor and others can have
+hardly any money and yet be rich. It's all in what abody means by rich
+and what kind of treasures you set store by. I wouldn't change places
+with your rich Aunt Rebecca for all the farms in Lancaster County."
+Poor Aunt Rebecca, she pitied her! Then she remembered the words of the
+memory gem they had analyzed in school last year, "Where ignorance is
+bliss 'tis folly to be wise." She could understand it now! So long as
+Aunt Rebecca didn't see what she missed it was all right. But if she
+ever woke up and really felt what her life might have been if she had
+married the poor man she loved--poor Aunt Rebecca! A halo of purest
+romance hung about the old woman as the child looked up at her.
+
+"My goodness," the woman broke the spell, "it's funny how old pictures
+make abody think back. That old polonaise dress, now," she went on in
+reminiscent strain, "had the nicest buttons on. I got some of 'em yet
+on my charm string."
+
+"Charm string--what's a charm string?"
+
+"Wait once. I'll show you."
+
+The woman left the room. They heard her tramp about up-stairs and soon
+she returned with a long string of buttons threaded closely together
+and forming a heavy cable.
+
+"Oh, let me see! Ain't that nice!" exclaimed Amanda. "Where did you
+ever get so many buttons and all different?"
+
+"We used to beg them. When I was a girl everybody mostly had a charm
+string. I kept puttin' buttons on mine till I was well up in my
+twenties, then the string was full and big so I stopped. I used to hang
+it over the looking glass in the parlor and everybody that came looked
+at it."
+
+Amanda fingered the charm string interestedly. Antique buttons,
+iridescent, golden, glimmering, some with carved flowers, others
+globules of colored glass, many of them with quaint filigree brass
+mounting over colored background, a few G. A. R. buttons from old
+uniforms, speckled china ones like portions of bird eggs--all strung
+together and each one having a history to the little old eccentric
+woman who had cherished them through many years.
+
+"This one Martin Landis give me for the string and this one is from
+Jonas' wedding jacket and this pretty blue glass one a girl gave me
+that's dead this long a'ready."
+
+"Oh"--Amanda's eyes shone. She turned to her mother, "Did you ever have
+a charm string, Mom?"
+
+"Yes. A pretty one. But I let you play with it when you were a baby and
+the string got broke and the buttons put in the box or lost."
+
+"Ach, but that spites me. I'd like to see it and have you tell where
+the buttons come from. I like old things like that, I do."
+
+"Then mebbe you'd like to see my friendship cane," said Aunt Rebecca.
+
+"Oh, yes! What's that?" Amanda rose from her chair, eager to see what a
+friendship cane could be.
+
+"My goodness, sit down! You get me all hoodled up when you act so
+jumpy," said the aunt. Then she walked to a corner of the parlor,
+reached behind the big cupboard and drew out a cane upon which were
+tied some thirty ribbon bows of various colors.
+
+"And is that a friendship cane?" asked Amanda. "What's it for?"
+
+"Ach, it was just such a style, good for nothin' but for the girls of
+my day to have a little pleasure with. We got boys and girls to give us
+pretty ribbons and we exchanged with some and then we tied 'em on the
+cane. See, they're all old kinds o' ribbons yet. Some are double-faced
+satin and some with them little scallops at the edge, and they're
+pretty colors, too. I could tell the name of every person who give me a
+ribbon for that cane. My goodness, lots o' them boys and girls been
+dead long a'ready. I guess abody shouldn't hold up such old things so
+long, it just makes you feel bad still when you rake 'em out and look
+at 'em. Here now, let me put it away, that's enough lookin' for one
+day." She spoke brusquely and put the cane into its hiding-place behind
+the glass cupboard.
+
+As Amanda watched the stern, unlovely face during the critical,
+faultfinding conversation which followed, she thought to herself, "I
+just believe that Uncle Amos told the truth when he said that Aunt
+Rebecca's like a chestnut burr. She's all prickly on the outside but
+she's got a nice, smooth side to her that abody don't often get the
+chance to see. Mebbe now, if she'd married Martin Landis's pop she'd be
+by now just as nice as Mrs. Landis. It wonders me now if she would!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+SCHOOL DAYS
+
+
+Mrs. Reist's desire for a happy childhood for her children was easily
+realized, especially in the case of Amanda. She had the happy faculty
+of finding joy in little things, things commonly called insignificant.
+She had a way of taking to herself each beauty of nature, each joy note
+of the birds, the airy loveliness of the clouds, and being thrilled by
+them.
+
+With Phil and Martin Landis--and the ubiquitous Landis baby--she
+explored every field, woods and roadside in the Crow Hill section of
+the county. From association with her Phil and Martin had developed an
+equal interest in outdoors. The Landis boy often came running into the
+Reist yard calling for Amanda and exclaiming excitedly, "I found a
+bird's nest! It's an oriole this time, the dandiest thing way out on
+the end of a tiny twig. Come on see it!"
+
+Amanda was the moving spirit of that little group of nature students.
+Phil and Martin might have never known an oriole from a thrush if she
+had not led them along the path of knowledge. Sometimes some of the
+intermediate Landis children joined the group. At times Lyman
+Mertzheimer sauntered along and invited himself, but his interest was
+feigned and his welcome was not always cordial.
+
+"You Lyman Mertzheimer," Amanda said to him one day, "if you want to go
+along to see birds' nests you got to keep quiet! You think it's smart
+to scare them off the nests. That poor thrasher, now, that you scared
+last week! You had her heart thumpin' so her throat most burst. And her
+with her nest right down on the ground where we could watch the babies
+if we kept quiet. You're awful mean!"
+
+"Huh," he answered, "what's a bird! All this fuss about a dinky brown
+bird that can't do anything but flop its wings and squeal when you go
+near it. It was fun to see her flop all around the ground."
+
+"Oh, you nasty mean thing, Lyman Mertzheimer"--for a moment Amanda
+found no words to express her contempt of him--"sometimes I just hate
+you!"
+
+He went off laughing, flinging back the prediction, "But some day
+you'll do the reverse, Amanda Reist." He felt secure in the belief that
+he could win the love of any girl he chose if he exerted himself to do
+so.
+
+The little country school of Crow Hill was necessarily limited in its
+curriculum, hence when Amanda expressed a desire to become a teacher it
+was decided to send her to the Normal School at Millersville. At that
+time she was sixteen and was grown into an attractive girl.
+
+"I know I'm not beautiful," she told her mother one day after a long,
+searching survey in the mirror. "My hair is too screaming red, but then
+it's fluffy and I got a lot of it. Add to red hair a nose that's a
+little pug and a mouth that's a little too big and I guess the
+combination won't produce any Cleopatra or any Titian beauty."
+
+"But you forgot the eyes," her mother said tenderly. "They are pretty
+brown and look--ach, I can't put it in fine words like you could, but I
+mean this: Your eyes are such honest eyes and always look so happy,
+like you could see through dark places and find the light and could
+look on wicked people and see the good in them and be glad about it.
+You keep that look in your eyes and no pretty girl will be lovelier
+that you are, Amanda."
+
+"Mother," the girl cried after she had kissed the white-capped woman,
+"if my eyes shine it's the faith and love you taught me that's shining
+in them."
+
+During the summer preceding Amanda's departure for school there was
+pleasant excitement at the Reist farm. Millie was proud of the fact
+that Amanda was "goin' to Millersville till fall" and lost no
+opportunity to mention it whenever a friend or neighbor dropped in
+for a chat.
+
+Aunt Rebecca did not approve of too much education. "Of course," she
+put it, "you're spendin' your own money for this Millersville goin',
+but I think you'd do better if you put it to bank and give it to Amanda
+when she gets married, once. This here rutchin' round to school so long
+is all for nothin'. I guess she's smart enough to teach country school
+without goin' to Millersville yet."
+
+However, her protests fell heedlessly on the ears of those most
+concerned and when the preparation of new clothes began Aunt Rebecca
+was the first to offer her help. "It's all for nothin', this school
+learnin', but if she's goin' anyhow I can just as well as not help with
+the sewin'," she announced and spent a few weeks at the Reist farm,
+giving valuable aid in the making of Amanda's school outfit.
+
+Those two weeks were long ones to Philip, who had scant patience with
+the querulous old aunt. But Amanda, since she had glimpsed the girlhood
+romance of the woman, had a kindlier feeling for her and could smile at
+the faultfinding or at least run away from it without retort if it
+became too vexatious.
+
+Crow Hill was only an hour's ride from the school at Millersville, so
+Amanda spent most of her weekends at home. Each time she had
+wonderful tales to tell, at least they seemed wonderful to the little
+group at the Reist farmhouse. Mrs. Reist and Uncle Amos, denied in
+their youth of more than a very meagre education, took just pride in
+the girl who was pursuing the road to knowledge. Philip, boylike,
+expressed no pride in his sister, but he listened attentively to her
+stories of how the older students played pranks on the newcomers.
+Millie was proud of having _our Amanda_ away at school and did not
+hesitate to express her pride. She felt sure that before the girl's
+three years' course was completed the name of Amanda Reist would shine
+above all others on the pages of the Millersville Normal School
+records.
+
+"Oh, I've learned a few things about human nature," said Amanda on her
+second visit home. "You know I told you last week how nice the older
+girls are to the new ones. A crowd of Seniors came into our room the
+other day and they were lovely! One of them told me she adored red hair
+and she just knew all the girls were going to love me because I have
+such a sweet face and I'm so dear--she emphasized every other word! I
+wondered what ailed her. She didn't know me well enough to talk like
+that. Before they left she began to talk about the Page Literary
+Society--'Dear, we're all Pageites, and it's the best, finest society
+in the school. We do have such good times. You ought to join. All the
+very nicest girls of the school are in it.' I promised to think it
+over. Well, soon after they left another bunch of girls came into our
+room and they were just as sweet to us. By and by one of them said,
+'Dear, we're all in the Normal Literary Society. It's the best society
+in the school; all the very nicest girls belong to it. You should join
+it.'"
+
+"Ha, electioneering, was they!" said Uncle Amos, laughing. "Well, leave
+it to the women. When they get the vote once we men got to pony up. But
+which society did you join?"
+
+"Neither. I'm going to wait a while and while I'm waiting I'm having a
+glorious time. The Pageites invited me to a fudge party one night, the
+Normalites took me for a long walk, a Pageite treated me to icecream
+soda one day and a Normalite gave me some real home-made cake the same
+afternoon. It's great to be on the fence when both sides are coaxing
+you to jump their way."
+
+"Well," said Millie, her face glowing with interest and pride in the
+girl, "if you ain't the funniest! I just bet them girls all want you to
+come their way. But what kind o' meals do you get?"
+
+"Good, Millie. Of course, though, I haven't any cellar to go to for pie
+or any cooky crock filled with sand-tarts with shellbarks on the top."
+
+"Don't you worry, Manda. I'll make you sand-tarts and lemon pie and
+everything you like every time you come home still."
+
+"Millie, you good soul! With that promise to help me I'll work like a
+Trojan and win some honors at old M.S.N.S. Just watch me!"
+
+Amanda did work. She brought to her studies the same whole-hearted
+interest and enthusiasm she evinced in her hunts for wild flowers, she
+applied to them the same dogged determination and untiring efforts she
+showed in her long search for hidden bird nests, with the inevitable
+result that her brain, naturally alert and brilliant, grasped with
+amazing celerity both the easy and the hard lessons of the Normal
+Training course.
+
+Millie's prediction proved well founded--Amanda Reist stood well in her
+classes. In botany she was the preeminent figure of the entire school.
+"Ask Amanda Reist, she'll tell you," became the slogan among the
+students. "Yellow violets, lady-slippers, wild ginger--she'll tell you
+where they grow or get a specimen for you."
+
+When the time for graduation drew near Amanda was able to carry home
+the glad news that she ranked third in her class and was chosen to
+deliver an oration at the Commencement exercises.
+
+"That I want to hear," declared Millie, "and I'll get a new dress to
+wear to it, too."
+
+On the June morning when the Commencement exercises of the First
+Pennsylvania State Normal School took place there were hundreds of
+happy, eager visitors on the campus at Millersville, and later in the
+great auditorium, but none was happier than Millie Hess, Reists' hired
+girl. The new dress, bought in Lancaster and made by Mrs. Reist and
+Aunt Rebecca, was a white lawn flecked with black. Millie had decided
+on a plain waist with high neck, the inch wide band at the throat edged
+with torchon lace, after the style she usually wore, the skirt made
+full and having above the hem, as Millie put it, "Just a few tucks,
+then wait a while, then tucks again." But Amanda, happening on the
+scene as the dress was tried on, protested at the high neck.
+
+"Please, Millie," she coaxed, "do have the neck turned down, oh, just a
+little! I'd have a nice pleated ruffle of white net around it and a
+little V in front. You'd look fine that way."
+
+"Me-fine! Go long with you, Amanda Reist! Ain't I got two good eyes and
+a lookin'-glass? But I guess I would look more like other folks if I
+had it made like you say. But now I don't want it too low. You dare fix
+it so it looks right." Displaying the same meek acquiescence in the
+desire of Amanda she bought a stylish hat instead of the big flat
+sailor with its taffeta bow she generally chose. The hat was Amanda's
+selection, a small, modest little thing with pale pink and gray roses
+misty with a covering of black tulle.
+
+"Me with pink roses on my hat and over forty years old," said Millie
+wonderingly, but when she tried it on and saw the improvement in her
+appearance she smiled happily. "It's the prettiest hat I ever had and
+I'll hold it up and take good care of it so it'll last me years. I'm
+gettin' fixed up for sure once, only my new shoes don't have no squeak
+in 'em at all."
+
+"That's out of style," Amanda informed her kindly.
+
+"It is? Why, when I was little I remember hearin' folks tell how when
+they bought new shoes they always asked for a 'fib's worth of squeak'
+in 'em."
+
+"And now they pay the shoemaker more than a 'fib' to put a few pegs in
+the shoes and take the squeak out."
+
+"Well, well, how things get different! But then I'm glad mine don't
+make no noise if that's the way now."
+
+Commencement day Millie could have held her own with any well-dressed
+city woman. Her plain face was almost beautiful as she stood ready for
+the great event of Amanda's life. At the last moment she thought of the
+big bush of shrubs in the yard--"I must get me a shrub to smell in the
+Commencement," she decided. So she gathered one of the queer-looking,
+fragrant brown blossoms, tied it in the corner of her handkerchief and
+bruised it gently so that the sweet perfume might be exuded. "Um-ah,"
+she breathed in the odor, "now I'm ready for Millersville."
+
+As she stood with Mrs. Reist and Philip on the front porch waiting for
+Uncle Amos she said to Mrs. Reist, "Ain't Amanda fixed me up fine?
+Abody'd hardly know me."
+
+Mrs. Reist in her plain gray Mennonite dress and stiff black silk
+bonnet was, as usual, an attractive figure. Philip, grown to the
+dignity of long trousers, carried himself with all the poise of
+seventeen. He was now a student in the Lancaster High School and had he
+not learned to dress and act like city boys do! Uncle Amos, in his best
+Sunday suit of gray, his Mennonite hat in his hand, ambled along last
+as the little group went down the aisle of the Millersville chapel to
+see Amanda's graduation.
+
+As Amanda marched in, her red hair parted on the side and coiled into a
+womanly coiffure, wearing a simple white organdie, she was just one of
+the hundred graduates who marched into the chapel. But later, as she
+stood alone on the platform and delivered her oration, "The Flowers of
+the Garden Spot," she held the interested attention of all in that vast
+audience. She knew her subject and succeeded in waking in the hearts of
+her hearers a desire to go out in the green fields and quiet woods and
+find the lovely habitants of the flower world.
+
+After it was all over and she stood, shining-eyed and happy, among her
+own people in the chapel, Martin Landis joined them. He, too, had left
+childhood behind. The serious gravity of his new estate was deepened in
+his face, but the same tenderness that had soothed the numerous Landis
+babies also still dwelt there. One of the regrets of his heart was the
+fact that nature had denied him great stature. He had always dreamed of
+growing into a tall man, powerful in physique, like Lyman Mertzheimer.
+But nature was obstinate and Martin Landis reached manhood, a strong,
+sturdy being, but of medium height. His mother tried to assuage his
+disappointment by asserting that even if his stature was not great as
+he wished his heart was big enough to make up for it. He tried to live
+up to her valuation of him, but it was scant comfort as he stood in the
+presence of physically big men. Life had not dealt generously with him
+as with Amanda in the matter of education. He wanted a chance to study
+at some institution higher than the little school at Crow Hill but his
+father needed him on the farm. The elder man was subject to attacks of
+rheumatism and at such times the brunt of farm labor fell upon the
+shoulders of Martin.
+
+Money was scarce in the Landis household, there were so many mouths to
+feed and it seemed to Martin that he would never have the opportunity
+to do anything but work in the fields from early spring to late autumn,
+snatch a few months for study in a business college in Lancaster, then
+go back again to the ploughing and arduous duties of his father's farm.
+He thought enviously of Lyman Mertzheimer, whose father had sent him to
+a well-known preparatory school and then started him in a full course
+in one of the leading universities of the country. If he had a chance
+like that! If he could only get away from the farm long enough to earn
+some money he knew he could work his way through school and fit himself
+for some position he would like better than farming. Some such thoughts
+ran through his brain as he went to congratulate Amanda on her
+graduation day.
+
+"Oh, Martin!" she greeted him cordially. "So you got here, after all.
+I'm so glad!"
+
+"So am I. I wouldn't have missed that oration for a great deal. I could
+smell the arbutus--say, it was great, Amanda!"
+
+At that moment Lyman Mertzheimer joined them.
+
+"Congratulations, Amanda," he said in his affected manner. As the good-
+looking son of a wealthy man he credited himself with the possession of
+permissible pride. "Congratulations," he repeated, ignoring the smaller
+man who stood by the side of the girl. "Your oration was beautifully
+rendered. You were very eloquent, but if you will pardon me, I'd like
+to remind you of one flower you forgot to mention--a very important
+flower of the Garden Spot."
+
+"I did?" she said as though it were a negligible matter. "What was the
+flower I forgot?"
+
+"Amanda Reist," he said, and laughed at his supposed cleverness.
+
+"Oh," she replied, vexed at his words and his bold attitude, "I left
+that out purposely along with some of the weeds of the Garden Spot I
+might have mentioned."
+
+"Meaning me?" He lifted his eyebrows in question. "You don't really
+mean that, Amanda." He spoke in winning voice. "I know you don't mean
+that so I won't quarrel with you."
+
+"Well, I guess you better not!" spoke up Millie who had listened to all
+that was said. "You don't have to get our Amanda cross on this here
+day. She done fine in that speech and we're proud of her and don't want
+you nor no one else to go spoil it by any fuss."
+
+"I see you have more than one champion, Amanda. I'll have to be very
+careful how I speak to you." He laughed but a glare of anger shone in
+his eyes.
+
+A few moments later the little party broke up and Lyman went off alone.
+A storm raged within him--"A hired girl to speak to me like that--a
+common hired girl! I'll teach her her place when I marry Amanda. And
+Amanda was high and mighty to-day. Thought she owned the world because
+she graduated from Millersville! As though that's anything! She's the
+kind needs a strong hand, a master hand. And I'll be the master! I like
+her kind, the women who have spirit and fire. But she needs to be held
+under, subjected by a stronger spirit. That little runt of a Martin
+Landis was hanging round her, too. He has no show when I'm in the
+running. He's poor and has no education. He's just a clodhopper."
+
+Meanwhile the clodhopper had also said good-bye to Amanda. For some
+reason he did not stop to analyze, the heart of Martin Landis was light
+as he went home from the Commencement at Millersville. He had always
+detested Lyman Mertzheimer, for he had felt too often the snubs and
+taunts of the rich boy. Amanda's rebuff of the arrogant youth pleased
+Martin.
+
+"I like Amanda," he thought frankly, but he never went beyond that in
+the analysis of his feelings for the comrade of his childhood and young
+boyhood. "I like her and I'd hate to see her waste her time on a fellow
+like Lyman Mertzheimer. I'm glad she squelched him. Perhaps some day
+he'll find there are still some desirable things that money can't buy."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+AMANDA REIST, TEACHER
+
+
+Amanda had no desire to teach far from her home. "I want to see the
+whole United States if I live long enough," she declared, "but I want
+to travel through the distant parts of it, not settle there to live.
+While I have a home I want to stay near it. So I wish I could get a
+school in Lancaster County."
+
+Her wish was granted. There was an opening in Crow Hill, in the little
+rural school in which she had received the rudiments of her education.
+Amanda applied for the position and was elected.
+
+She brought to that little school several innovations. Her love and
+knowledge of nature helped her to make the common studies less
+monotonous and more interesting. A Saturday afternoon nutting party
+with her pupils afforded a more promising subject for Monday's original
+composition than the hackneyed suggestions of the grammar book's "Tell
+all you know about the cultivation of coffee." Later, snow forts in the
+school-yard impressed the children with the story of Ticonderoga more
+indelibly than mere reading about it could have done. During her last
+year at Normal, Amanda had read about a school where geography was
+taught by the construction of miniature islands, capes, straits,
+peninsulas, and so forth, in the school-yard. She directed the older
+children in the formation of such a landscape picture. When a
+blundering boy slipped and with one bare foot demolished at one stroke
+the cape, island and bay, there was much merriment and rivalry for the
+honor of rebuilding. The children were almost unanimous in their
+affection for the new teacher and approval of her methods of teaching.
+Most of them ran home with eager tales concerning the wonderful, funny,
+"nice" ways Miss Reist had of teaching school.
+
+However, Crow Hill is no Eden. Some of the older boys laughed at the
+"silly ideas" of "that Manda Reist" and disliked the way she taught
+geography and made the pupils "play in the dirt and build capes and
+islands and the whole blamed geography business right in the school-
+yard."
+
+It naturally followed that adverse criticism grew and grew, like
+Longfellow's pumpkin, and many curious visitors came to Crow Hill
+school. The patrons, taxpayers, directors were concerned and considered
+it their duty to drop in and observe how things were being run in that
+school. They found that the three R's were still taught efficiently,
+even if they were taught with the aid of chestnuts, autumn leaves and
+flowers; they were glad to discover that an island, though formed in
+the school-yard from dirt and water, was still being defined with the
+old standard definition, "An island is a body of land entirely
+surrounded by water."
+
+If any other school had graduated Amanda, her position might have been
+a trifle precarious, but Millersville Normal School was too well known
+and universally approved in Lancaster County to admit of any
+questionable suggestions about its recent graduate. Most of the people
+who came to inspect came without any antagonistic feeling and they left
+convinced that, although some of Amanda Reist's ways were a little
+different, the scholars seemed to know their lessons and to progress
+satisfactorily.
+
+Later in the school year she urged the children to bring dried corn
+husk to school, she brought brightly colored raffia, and taught them
+how to make baskets. The children were clamorous for more knowledge of
+basket making. The fascinating task of forming objects of beauty and
+usefulness from homely corn husk and a few gay threads of raffia was
+novel to them. Amanda was willing to help the children along the path
+of manual dexterity and eager to have them see and love the beautiful.
+Under her guidance they gathered and pressed weeds and grasses and the
+airy, elusive milkweed down, caught butterflies, and assembled the
+whole under glass, thus making beautiful trays and pictures.
+
+On the whole it was a wonderful, happy year for the new teacher of the
+Crow Hill school. When spring came with all the alluring witchery of
+the Garden Spot it seemed to her she must make every one of her pupils
+feel the thrill of the song-sparrow's first note and the matchless
+loveliness of the anemone.
+
+One day in early April, the last week of school, as she locked the door
+of the schoolhouse and started down the road to her home an unusual
+glow of satisfaction beamed on her face.
+
+"Only two more days of school, then the big Spelling Bee to wind it up
+and then my first year's teaching will be over! I have enjoyed it but
+I'm like the children--eager for vacation."
+
+She hummed gaily as she went along, this nineteen-year-old school
+teacher so near the end of her first year's work in the schoolroom. Her
+eyes roved over the fair panorama of Lancaster County in early spring
+dress. As she neared the house she saw her Uncle Amos resting under a
+giant sycamore tree that stood in the front yard.
+
+"Good times," she called to him.
+
+"Hello, Manda," he answered. "You're home early."
+
+"Early--it's half-past four. Have you been asleep and lost track of the
+time?"
+
+He took a big silver watch from a pocket and whistled as he looked at
+it. "Whew! It is that late! Time for me to get to work again. Your Aunt
+Rebecca's here."
+
+"Dear me! And I felt so happy! Now I'll get a call-down about something
+or other. I'm ashamed of myself, Uncle Amos, but I think Aunt Rebecca
+gets worse as she grows older."
+
+"'Fraid so," the man agreed soberly. "Well, we can't all be alike. Too
+bad, now, she don't take after me, eh, Amanda?"
+
+"It surely is! You're the nicest man I know!"
+
+"Hold on now," he said; "next you make me blush. I ain't used to
+gettin' compliments."
+
+"But I mean it. I don't see how she can be your sister and Mother's! I
+think the fairies must have mixed babies when she was little. I can see
+many good qualities in her, but there's no need of her being so
+contrary and critical. I remember how I used to be half afraid of her
+when I was little. She tried to make Mother dress me in a plain dress
+and a Mennonite bonnet, but Mother said she'd dress me like a little
+girl and if I chose I could wear the plain dress and bonnet when I was
+old enough to know what it means. Oh, Mother's wonderful! If I had Aunt
+Rebecca for a mother--but perhaps she'd be different then. Oh, Uncle
+Amos, do you remember the howl she raised when we had our house wired
+for electricity?"
+
+"Glory, yes! She was scared to death to come here for a while."
+
+"And Phil wickedly suggested we scare her again! But she was afraid of
+it. She was sure the house would be struck by lightning the first
+thunder-storm we'd have. And when we put the bath tub into the house--
+whew! Didn't she give us lectures then! She has no use for 'swimmin'
+tubs' to this day. If folks can't wash clean out of a basin they must
+be powerful dirty! That's her opinion."
+
+Both laughed at the remembrance of the old woman's words. Then the girl
+asked, "What did she have to say to you to-day? Did she iron any
+wrinkles out of you?"
+
+"Oh, I got it a'ready." The man chuckled. "I was plantin' potatoes till
+my back was near broke and I came in to rest a little and get a drink.
+She told me it's funny people got to rest so often in these days when
+they do a little work. She worked in the fields often and she could
+stand more yet than a lot o' lazy men. I didn't answer her but I came
+out here and got my rest just the same. She ain't bossin' her brother
+Amos yet! But now I got to work faster for this doin' nothin' under the
+tree."
+
+When Amanda entered the kitchen she found her mother and the visitor
+cutting carpet rags. Old clothes were falling under the snip of the
+shears into a peach basket, ready to be sewn together, wound into balls
+and woven into rag carpet by the local carpet weaver on his hand loom.
+
+"Hello," said the girl as she laid a few books on the kitchen table.
+
+"Books again," sniffed Aunt Rebecca. "I wonder now how much money gets
+spent for books that ain't necessary."
+
+"Oh, lots of it," answered the girl cheerfully.
+
+"Umph, did you buy those?"
+
+"Yes, when I went to Millersville."
+
+"My goodness, what a lot o' money goes for such things these days!
+There's books about everything, somebody told me. There's even some
+wrote about the Pennsylvania Dutch and about that there Stiegel glass
+some folks make such a fuss about. I don't see nothin' in that Stiegel
+glass to make it so dear. Why, I had a little white glass pitcher,
+crooked it was, too, and nothin' extra to look at. But along come one
+of them anteak men, so they call themselves, the men that buy up old
+things. Anyhow, he offered to give me a dollar for that little pitcher.
+Ach, I didn't care much for it, though it was Jonas's granny's still. I
+sold it to that man quick before he'd change his mind and mebbe only
+give me fifty cents."
+
+"You sold it?" asked Amanda. "And was it this shape?"
+
+She made a swift, crude sketch of the well-known Stiegel pitcher shape.
+
+"My goodness, you drawed one just like it! It looked like that."
+
+"Then, Aunt Rebecca, you gave that man a bargain. That was a real
+Stiegel pitcher and worth much more than a dollar!"
+
+"My goodness, what did I do now! You mean it was worth _more_ than
+that?" The woman was incredulous.
+
+"You might have gotten five, perhaps ten, dollars for it in the city.
+You know Stiegel glass was some of the first to be made in this
+country, made in Manheim, Pennsylvania, way back in 1760, or some such
+early date as that. It was crude as to shape, almost all the pieces are
+a little crooked, but it was wonderfully made in some ways, for it has
+a ring like a bell, and the loveliest fluting, and some of it is in
+beautiful blue, green and amethyst. Stiegel glass is rare and valuable
+so if you have any more hold on to it and I'll buy it from you."
+
+"Well, I guess! I wouldn't leave you pay five dollars for a glass
+pitcher! But I wish I had that one back. It spites me now I sold it. My
+goodness, abody can't watch out enough so you won't get cheated. Where
+did you learn so much about that old glass?"
+
+"Oh, I read about it in a _book_ last year," came the ready
+answer.
+
+Aunt Rebecca looked at the girl, but Amanda's face bore so innocent an
+expression that the woman could not think her guilty of emphasizing the
+word purposely.
+
+"So," the visitor said, "they did put something worth in a book once!
+Well, I guess it's time you learn something that'll help you save
+money. All the books you got to read! And Philip's still goin' to
+school, too. Why don't he help Amos on the farm instead of runnin' to
+Lancaster to school?"
+
+"He wants to be a lawyer," said Mrs. Reist. "I think still that as long
+as he has a good head for learnin' and wants to go to school I should
+leave him go till he's satisfied. I think his pop would say so if he
+was livin'. Not everybody takes to farmin' and it is awful hard work.
+Amos works that hard."
+
+"Poof," said Aunt Rebecca, "I ain't heard tell yet of any man workin'
+himself to death! It wouldn't hurt Philip to be a farmer. The trouble
+is it don't sound tony enough for the young ones these days. Lawyer--
+what does he want to be a lawyer for? I heard a'ready that they are all
+liars. You're by far too easy!"
+
+"Oh, Aunt Rebecca," said Amanda, "not all lawyers are liars. Abraham
+Lincoln was a lawyer."
+
+"Ach, I guess he was no different from others, only he's dead so abody
+shouldn't talk about him."
+
+Amanda sighed and turned to her mother. "Mother, I'm going up to put on
+an old dress and when Phil comes we're going over to the woods for
+arbutus."
+
+"All right."
+
+But the aunt did not consider it all right. "Why don't you help cut
+carpet rags?" she asked. "That would be more sense than runnin' out
+after flowers that wither right aways."
+
+"If we find any, Millie is going to take them to market to-morrow and
+sell them. Some people asked for them last week. It's rather early but
+we may find some on the sunny side of the woods."
+
+"Oh," the woman was mollified, "if you're goin' to sell 'em that's
+different. Ain't it funny anybody _buys_ flowers? But then some
+people don't know how to spend their money and will buy anything, just
+so it's buyin'!"
+
+But Amanda was off to the wide stairs, beyond the sound of the
+haranguing voice.
+
+"Glory!" she said to herself when she reached her room. "If my red hair
+didn't bristle! What a life we'd have if Mother were like that! If I
+ever think I have nothing to be thankful for I'm going to remember
+that!"
+
+A little while later she went down the stairs, out through the yard and
+down the country road to meet her brother. She listened for his
+whistle. In childhood he had begun the habit of whistling a strain from
+the old song, "Soldier's Farewell" and, like many habits of early
+years, it had clung to him. So when Amanda heard the plaintive melody,
+"How can I leave thee, how can I from thee part," she knew that her
+brother was either arriving or leaving.
+
+As she walked down the road in the April sunshine the old whistle
+floated to her. She hastened her steps and in a bend in the road came
+face to face with the boy.
+
+At sight of her he stopped whistling, whipped off his cap and greeted
+her, "Hello, Sis. I thought that would bring you if you were about. Oh,
+don't look so tickled over my politeness--I just took off my hat
+because I'm hot. This walk from the trolley on a day like this warms
+you up."
+
+His words brought a light push from the girl as she took her place
+beside him and they walked on.
+
+"That's a mournful whistle for a home-coming," Amanda told him. "Can't
+you find a more appropriate one?"
+
+"My repertoire is limited, sister--I learned that big word in English
+class to-day and had to try it out on some one."
+
+"Phil, you're crazy!" was the uncomplimentary answer, but her eyes
+smiled with pride upon the tall, red-haired boy beside her. "I see it's
+one of your giddy days so I'll sober you up a bit--Aunt Rebecca's at
+the house."
+
+"Oh, yea!" He held his side in mock agony.
+
+"Again? What's the row now? Any curtain lectures?"
+
+"Be comforted, Phil. She's going home to-night if you'll drive her to
+Landisville."
+
+"Won't I though!" he said, with the average High School boy's disregard
+of pure English. "Surest thing you know, Sis, I'll drive her home or
+anywhere else. What's she doing?"
+
+"Helping Mother cut carpet rags."
+
+"Well, that's the only redeeming feature about her. She does help
+Mother. Aunt Rebecca isn't lazy. I'm glad to be able to say one nice
+thing about her. Apart from that she's generally as Millie says,
+'actin' like she ate wasps.' But she can't scare me. All her ranting
+goes in one ear and out the other."
+
+"Nothing there to stop it, eh, Phil?"
+
+"Amanda! That from you! Now I know how Caesar felt when he saw Brutus
+with the mob."
+
+"It's a case of 'Cheer up, the worst is yet to come,' I suppose, so you
+might as well smile."
+
+In this manner they bantered until they reached the Reist farmhouse.
+There the boy greeted the visitor politely, as his sister had done.
+
+"My goodness," was the aunt's greeting to him, "you got an armful of
+books, too!"
+
+"Yes. I'm going to be a lawyer, but I have to do a lot of hard studying
+before I get that far."
+
+"Umph, that's nothin' to brag about. I'd think more of you if you
+stayed home and helped Amos plant corn and potatoes or tobacco."
+
+"I'd never plant tobacco. Chewing and smoking are filthy habits and I'd
+never have the stuff grow on any farm I owned."
+
+"But the money, Philip, just think once of the money tobacco brings!
+But, ach, it's for no use talkin' farm to you. You got nothin' but
+books in your head. How do you suppose this place is goin' to be run
+about ten years from now if Amanda teaches and you turn lawyer? Amos is
+soon too old to work it and you can't depend on hired help. Then what?"
+
+"Search me," said the boy inelegantly. "But I'm not worrying about it.
+We may not want to live here ten years from now. But, Mother," he
+veered suddenly, "got any pie left from dinner? I'm hungry. May I
+forage?"
+
+"Help yourself, Philip. There's a piece of cherry pie and a slice of
+chocolate cake in the cellar."
+
+"Hurray, Mother! I'm going to see that you get an extra star in your
+crown some day for feeding the hungry."
+
+"But you spoil him," said Aunt Rebecca as Phil went off to the cellar.
+"And if that boy ain't always after pie! I mind how he used to eat pie
+when he was little and you brought him to see us. Not that I grudged
+him the pie, but I remember how he always took two pieces if he got it.
+And pie ain't good for him, neither, between meals."
+
+"I guess it won't hurt him," said Mrs. Reist; "the boy's growin' and he
+has just a lunch at noon, so he gets hungry till he walks in from the
+trolley. Boys like pie. His father was a great hand for pie."
+
+"Well," said the aunt decisively, "I would never spoiled children if I
+had any. But I had none."
+
+"Thank goodness!" Amanda breathed to herself as she went out to the
+porch to wait for her brother.
+
+"Um, that pie was good," was his verdict as he joined her. "But say,
+Sis, didn't you hear the squirrels chatter in there?"
+
+"Come on." Amanda laughed as she swung the basket to her arm and pulled
+eagerly at the sleeve of the boy's coat. "Let's go after the flowers
+and forget all about her."
+
+Along the Crow Hill schoolhouse runs a long spur of wooded hills
+skirting the country road for a quarter of a mile and stretching away
+into denser timberland. In those woods were the familiar paths Amanda
+and Phil loved to traverse in search of flowers. In April, when the
+first warm, sunshiny days came, the ground under the dead leaves of the
+overshadowing oaks was carpeted with arbutus. Eager children soon found
+those near the crude rail fence, but Amanda and Phil followed the
+narrow trails to the secluded sheltered spots where the May flowers had
+not been touched that spring.
+
+"No roots, Phil!" warned the girl as they knelt in the brown leaves and
+pushed away the covering from the fragrant blossoms.
+
+"Sure thing not, Sis! We don't want to exterminate the trailing arbutus
+in Crow Hill. Say, I passed two kids this morning as I was going to the
+trolley. They had a bunch of arbutus, roots and all. Believe me, I
+acted up like Aunt Rebecca for about two minutes. But it's a shame to
+take the roots. I almost hate to pick the flowers--seems as if they're
+at home here in the woods--belong here, in a way."
+
+"I know what you're thinking about, Phil; that little verse:
+
+  'Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
+  Loved the wood-rose and left it on its stalk?
+  Oh, be my friend, and teach me to be thine.'
+
+I agree with the first half of the requirement, but the latter half
+can't always be followed. At any rate, the wild rose is better left on
+the stem, for it withers when plucked. But with arbutus it's different.
+Why, Phil, some of the people who come to market and buy our wild
+flowers would never see any if they could not buy them in the city.
+Imagine, if you can, yourself living in a big city, far away from Crow
+Hill, where the Mayflowers grow--Philadelphia or New York, or some such
+formidable-sounding place. The city might engross your attention so
+you'd be happy for months. But along comes spring with its call to the
+woods and meadows. Still the city and its demands grip you like a vise,
+and you can't run away to where the wild green things are pushing to
+the light. Suppose you saw a flower-stand and a tiny bunch of arbutus--"
+
+"I'd pay my last dollar for them!" declared Philip. "Guess you're
+right. According to your reasoning, we're as good as missionaries when
+we find wild flowers and take or send them to the city market to sell.
+Aunt Rebecca wouldn't see that. She'd see the money end of it. Poor
+soul! I'm glad I'm not like her."
+
+"Pharisee," chided his sister.
+
+"Well, do you know, Manda, sometimes I think there's something to be
+said in favor of the Pharisee."
+
+The girl gave him a quizzical look.
+
+The serious and the light were so strangely mingled in the boy's
+nature. Amanda caught many glimpses into the recesses of his heart,
+recesses he knew she would not try to explore deeper than he wished.
+For the natures of brother and sister were strongly similar--light-
+hearted and happy, laughing and gay, keen to enjoy life, but reading
+some part of its mysteries, understanding some of its sorrows and
+showing at times evidences of searching thought and grave retrospect.
+
+"How many dollars' worth do we have?" the boy asked in imitation of
+Aunt Rebecca's mercenary way.
+
+"Oh, Phil! You're dreadful! But I bet the flowers will be gone in no
+time when Millie puts them out."
+
+"I'd wager they'd go faster if you sold them," he replied, looking
+admiringly at the girl. "You'd be a pretty fair peddler of flowers,
+Sis."
+
+"Oh, Phil, be sensible."
+
+"I mean it, Amanda. You're not so bad looking. Your hair isn't common
+red, it's Titian. And it's fluffy. Then your eyes are good and your
+complexion lacks the freckles you ought to have. Your nose isn't
+Grecian, but it'll do--we'll call it retroussé, for that sounds nicer
+than pug. And your mouth--well, it's not exactly a rosebud one, but it
+doesn't mar the general landscape like some mouths do. Altogether,
+you're real good-looking, even if you are my sister."
+
+"Philip Reist, you're impertinent! But I suppose you are truthful.
+That's a doubtful compliment you're giving me, but I'm glad to say your
+veracity augurs well for your success as a lawyer. If you are always as
+honest as in that little speech you just delivered, you'll do."
+
+"Oh, I'll make grand old Abe Lincoln look to his laurels."
+
+And so, with comradely teasing, threaded with a more serious vein, an
+hour passed and the two returned home with their baskets filled with
+the lovely pink and white, delicately fragrant, trailing arbutus.
+
+They found the supper ready, Uncle Amos washed and combed, and waiting
+on the back porch for the summons to the meal.
+
+Mrs. Reist peeped into the basket and exclaimed in joy as she breathed
+in the sweet perfume of the fresh flowers. Millie paused in the act of
+pouring coffee into big blue cups to "get a sniff of the smell," but
+Aunt Rebecca was impatient at the momentary delay. "My goodness, but
+you poke around. I like to get the supper out before it gets cold."
+
+There was no perceptible hurry at her words, but a few minutes later
+all were seated about the big table in the kitchen with a hearty supper
+spread before them.
+
+Uncle Amos was of a jovial, teasing disposition, prone to occasional
+shrewd thrusts at the idiosyncrasies of his acquaintances, but he held
+sacred things sacred and rendered to reverent things their due
+reverence. It was his acknowledged privilege to say grace, at the meals
+served in the Reist home.
+
+That April evening, after he said, "Amen," Philip turned to Amanda and
+said, "Polly wants some too."
+
+The girl burst into gay laughter. Everybody at the table looked at her
+in surprise.
+
+"What's funny?" asked Aunt Rebecca.
+
+"I'll tell you," Phil offered. "Last Saturday we were back at Harnly's.
+They have two parrots on the porch, and all morning we tried to get
+those birds to talk. They just sat and blinked at us, looked wise, but
+said not a word. I forgot all about them when we went in to dinner, but
+we had just sat down and bowed our heads for grace when those birds
+began to talk. They went at it as though some person had wound them up.
+'Polly wants some dinner; Polly wants some, too. Give Polly some too.'
+Well, it struck me funny. Their voices were so shrill and it was such a
+surprise after they refused to say a word, that I got to laughing. I
+gave Amanda a nudge, and she got the giggles."
+
+"It was awful," said Amanda. "If Phil hadn't nudged me I could have
+weathered through by biting my lips."
+
+"I don't see anything to laugh about when two parrots talk," was Aunt
+Rebecca's remark. "Anyhow, that was no time to laugh. I guess you'll
+remember what I tell you, some day when you got to cry for all this
+laughin' you do now."
+
+"Ach," said the mother, "let 'em laugh. I guess we were that way too
+once."
+
+"Bully for you, Mother," cried the boy; "you're as young as any of us."
+
+"That's what," chimed in Millie.
+
+"Oh, say, Millie," asked Philip, "did you make that cherry pie I
+finished up after school to-day?"
+
+"Yes. Was it good?"
+
+"Good? It melted in my mouth. When I marry, Millie, I'm going to borrow
+you for a while to come teach my wife how to make such pies."
+
+"Listen at him now! Ain't it a wonder he wouldn't think to get a wife
+that knows how to cook and bake? But, Philip Reist, you needn't think
+I'll ever leave your mom unless she sends me off."
+
+"Wouldn't you, now, Millie?" asked Uncle Amos.
+
+"Why, be sure, not! I ain't forgettin' how nice she was to me a'ready.
+I had hard enough to make through before I came here to work. I had a
+place to live out in Readin' where I was to get big money, but when I
+got there I found I was to go in the back way always, even on Sunday,
+and was to eat alone in the kitchen after they eat, and I was to go to
+my room and not set with the folks at all. I just wouldn't live like
+that, so I come back to Lancaster County and heard about you people
+wantin' a girl, and here I am."
+
+Amanda looked at the hired girl. In her calico dress and gingham apron,
+her hair combed back plain from her homely face, she was certainly not
+beautiful, and yet the girl who looked at her thought she appeared
+really attractive as the gratitude of her loyal heart shone on her
+countenance.
+
+"Millie's a jewel," thought Amanda. "And Mother's another. I hope I
+shall be like them as I grow older."
+
+After the supper dishes were washed, Aunt Rebecca decided it was time
+for her to go home.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to go in the automobile this time?" suggested
+Philip. "It would go so much faster and is easier riding than the
+carriage."
+
+"Faster! Well, I guess that horse of yourn can get me anywhere I want
+to go fast enough to suit me. I got no time for all these new-fangled
+things, like wagons that run without horses, and lights you put on and
+off with a button. It goes good if you don't get killed yet with that
+automobile."
+
+"Then I'll hitch up Bill," said the boy as he went out, an amused smile
+on his face.
+
+Amanda was thoughtful as she bunched the arbutus for the market next
+day. "I wonder how Uncle Jonas could live with Aunt Rebecca," she
+questioned. Ah, that was an enlightening test. "Am I an easy, pleasant
+person to live with?" Making full allowance for differences in
+temperament and dispositions, there was still, the girl thought, a
+possible compatibility that could be cultivated so that family life
+might be harmonious and happy.
+
+"It's that I am going to consider when I get married, if I ever do,"
+she decided that day. "I won't marry a man who would 'jaw' like Aunt
+Rebecca. I'm fiery-tempered myself, and I'll have to learn to control
+my anger better. Goodness knows I've had enough striking examples of
+how scolding sounds! But I won't want to squabble with the man I really
+care for--Martin Landis, for instance--" Her thoughts went off to her
+castles in Spain as she gathered the arbutus into little bunches and
+tied them. "He offered to help me fix my schoolroom for the Spelling
+Bee on Saturday. He's got a big heart, my Sir Galahad of childhood."
+She smiled as she thought of her burned hand and his innocent kiss.
+"Poor Martin--he's working like a man these ten years. I'd like to see
+him have a chance at education like Lyman Mertzheimer has. I know he'd
+accomplish something in the world then! At any rate, Martin's a
+gentleman and Lyman's a--ugh, I hate the very thought of him. I'm glad
+he's not at home to come to my Spelling Bee."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE SPELLING BEE
+
+
+The old-fashioned Spelling Bee has never wholly died out in Lancaster
+County, Pennsylvania. Each year readers of certain small-town papers
+will find numerous news-titles headed something like this: "The Bees
+Will Buzz," and under them an urgent invitation to attend a Spelling
+Bee at a certain rural schoolhouse. "A Good Time Promised"--"Classes
+for All"--"Come One, Come All"--the advertisements never fail. Many
+persons walk or ride to the little schoolhouse. The narrow seats, the
+benches along the wall, and all extra chairs that can be brought to the
+place are taken long before the hour set for the bees to buzz. The
+munificent charge is generally fifteen cents, and where in this whole
+United States of America can so much real enjoyment be secured for
+fifteen cents as is given at an old-fashioned Spelling Bee?
+
+That April evening of Amanda's Bee the Crow Hill schoolhouse was filled
+at an early hour. The scholars, splendid in their Sunday clothes,
+occupied front seats. Parents, friends and interested visitors from
+near-by towns crowded into the room.
+
+Amanda, dressed in white, came upon the platform and announced that the
+scholars had prepared a simple program which would be interspersed
+through the spelling classes.
+
+Vehement clapping of hands greeted her words and then the audience
+became silent as the littlest scholar of the school rose and delivered
+the address of welcome. There followed music and more recitations, all
+amateurish, but they brought feelings of pride to many mothers and
+fathers who listened, smiling, to "Our John" or "Our Mary" do his or
+her best.
+
+But the real excitement began with the spelling classes. The first was
+open to all children under fourteen. At the invitation, boys and girls
+walked bravely to the front and joined the line till it reached from
+one side of the room to the opposite. A teacher from a neighboring town
+gave out the words. The weeding-out process soon began. Some fell down
+on simple words, others handled difficult ones with ease and spelled
+glibly through some which many of the older people present had
+forgotten existed. Soon the class narrowed down to two. Back and forth,
+back and forth the words rolled until the teacher pronounced one of the
+old standby catch-words. One of the contestants shook his head,
+puzzled, and surrendered.
+
+There was more music, several recitations by the children, a spelling
+class for older people, more music, then a General Information class,
+whose participants were asked such questions as, "Who is State
+Superintendent of Schools?" "How many legs has a fly?" "How many teeth
+has a cow?" "Which color is at the top of the rainbow arch?" The amazed,
+puzzled expressions on the faces of the questioned afforded much
+merriment for the others. It was frequently necessary to wait a moment
+until the laughter was suppressed before other questions could be asked.
+
+A geographical class was equally interesting. "How many counties has
+Pennsylvania?" sent five persons to their seats before it was answered
+correctly. Others succeeded in locating such queer names as
+Popocatepetl, Martinique, Ashtabula, Rhodesia, Orkney, Comanche.
+
+A little later the last spelling class was held. It was open to
+everybody. The line was already stretched across the schoolroom when
+Lyman Mertzheimer, home for a few days of vacation, entered the
+schoolhouse.
+
+"Oh, dear," thought Amanda, "what does he want here? I'd rather do
+without his fifteen cents! He expects to make a show and win the prize
+from every one else."
+
+Lyman, indeed, swaggered down the room and entered the line, bearing
+the old air of superiority. "I'll show them how to spell," he thought
+as he took his place. Spelling had been his strong forte in the old
+days of school, and it was soon evident that he retained his former
+ability. The letters of the most confusing words fell from his lips as
+though the very pages of the spelling-book were engraved upon his
+brain. He held his place until the contest had ruled out all but two
+beside himself. Then he looked smilingly at Amanda and reared his head
+in new dignity and determination.
+
+"Stelliform, the shape of a star," submitted the teacher. The word fell
+to Lyman. He was visibly hesitant. Was it stelli or stella?
+
+Bringing his knowledge of Latin into service, he was inclined to think
+it was stella. He began, "S-t-e-l-l--"
+
+He looked uncertainly at one of his friends who was seated in the front
+seat. He, also, was a champion speller.
+
+"Oh, if Joe would only help me!" thought the speller.
+
+As if telepathy were possible, Joe raised the forefinger of his left
+hand to his eye, looked at Lyman with a meaning glance that told him
+what he craved to know.
+
+"Iform," finished Lyman in sure tones.
+
+"Correct."
+
+"That was clever of Joe," thought the cheat as the teacher gave out a
+word to one of the three contestants. "I just caught his sign in time.
+Nobody noticed it."
+
+But he reckoned without the observant teacher of Crow Hill school.
+Amanda, seated in the front of the room and placed so she half faced
+the audience and with one little turn of her head could view the
+spellers, had seen the cheating process and understood its
+significance. The same trick had been attempted by some of her pupils
+several times during the monthly spelling tests she held for the
+training of her classes.
+
+"The cheat! The big cheat!" she thought, her face flushing with anger.
+"How I hope he falls down on the next word he gets!"
+
+However, the punishment he deserved was not meted out to him. Lyman
+Mertzheimer outspelled his opponents and stood alone on the platform, a
+smiling victor.
+
+"The cheat! The contemptible cheat!" hammered in Amanda's brain.
+
+After the distribution of prizes, cheap reprint editions of well-known
+books, an auctioneer stepped on the platform and drew from a corner a
+bushel basket of packages of various sizes and shapes.
+
+"Oyez, Oyez," he called in true auctioneer style, "we have here a
+bushel of good things, all to be sold, sight unseen, to the highest
+bidder. I understand each package contains something good to eat,
+packed and contributed by the pupils of this school. The proceeds of
+the sale are to be used to purchase good books for the school library
+for the pupils to read. So, folks, bid lively and don't be afraid to
+run a little risk. You'll get more fun from the package you buy than
+you've had for a long time, I'll warrant."
+
+With much talk and gesticulation the spirited bidding was kept up until
+every package was sold. Shouts of joy came from the. country boys when
+one opened a box filled with ten candy suckers and distributed them
+among the crowd. Other bidders won candy, cake, sandwiches, and loud
+was the laughter when a shoe-box was sold for a dollar, opened and
+found to contain a dozen raw sweet potatoes.
+
+After the fun of the auction had died down all rose and sang "The Star-
+Spangled Banner," and the Spelling Bee was over.
+
+The audience soon began to leave. Laughing girls and boys started down
+the dark country roads. Carriages and automobiles carried many away
+until a mere handful of people were left in the little schoolhouse.
+
+Lyman Mertzheimer lingered. He approached Amanda, exchanged greetings
+with her and asked, "May I walk home with you? I have something to tell
+you."
+
+"Oh, I suppose so," she replied, not very graciously. The dishonest
+method of gaining a prize still rankled in her. Lyman walked about the
+room impatiently, looking idly at the drawings and other work of the
+children displayed above the blackboards.
+
+A moment later Martin Landis came up to Amanda. He had been setting
+chairs in their places, gathering singing-books and putting the room in
+order.
+
+"Well, Manda," he said, "it was a grand success! Everything went off
+fine, lots of fun for all. And I heard Hershey, the director, tell his
+wife that you certainly know how to conduct a Spelling Bee."
+
+"Oh, did he say that?" The news pleased her. "But I'm glad it's over."
+
+"I guess you are. There, we're all fixed up now. I'll send one of the
+boys over next week with the team to take back the borrowed chairs.
+I'll walk home with you, Manda. What's Lyman Mertzheimer hanging around
+for? Soon as those people by the door leave, we can lock up and go."
+
+"Why--Martin--thank you--but Lyman asked to walk home with me."
+
+"Oh! All right," came the calm reply. "I'll see you again. Good-night,
+Amanda."
+
+"Good-night, Martin."
+
+She looked after him as he walked away, the plumed knight of her
+castles in Spain. She had knighted him that day long ago when he had
+put out the fire and kissed her hand, and during the interval of years
+that childish affection had grown in her heart. In her thoughts he was
+still "My Martin." But the object of that long-abiding affection showed
+all too plainly that he was not cognizant of what was in the heart of
+his childhood's friend. To him she was still "Just Amanda," good
+comrade, sincere friend.
+
+Fortunately love and hope are inseparable. Amanda thought frequently of
+the verse, "God above is great to grant as mighty to make, and creates
+the love to reward the love." It was not always so, she knew, but she
+hoped it would be so for her. Martin Landis, unselfish, devoted to his
+people, honest as a dollar, true as steel--dear Martin, how she wanted
+to walk home with him that night of the Spelling Bee instead of going
+with Lyman Mertzheimer!
+
+The voice of the latter roused her from her revery. "I say, Amanda, are
+we going to stay here all night? Why in thunder can't those fools go
+home so you can lock the door and go! And I say, Amanda, don't you
+think Martin Landis is letting himself grow shabby and seedy? He's
+certainly settling into a regular clodhopper. He shuffled along like a
+hecker to-night. I don't believe he ever has his clothes pressed."
+
+"Martin's tired to-night," she defended, her eyes flashing fire. "He
+worked in the fields all day, helping his father. Then he and one of
+his brothers took their team and went after some chairs I wanted to
+borrow for the Spelling Bee. They arranged the room for me, too."
+
+"Oh, I see. Poor fellow! It must be the very devil to be poor!"
+
+The words angered the girl. "Well," she flared out, "if you want to
+talk about Martin Landis, you go home. I'll get home without you."
+
+"Now, Amanda," he pleaded sweetly, "don't get huffy, please! I want you
+in a good humor. I have something great to tell you. Can't you take a
+bit of joshing? Of course, it's fine in you to defend your old friends.
+But I didn't really mean to say anything mean about Martin. You do get
+hot so easily."
+
+"It must be my red-hair-temper," she said, laughing. "I do fly off the
+handle, as Phil says, far too soon."
+
+"Shall we go now?" Lyman asked as the last lingering visitors left the
+room.
+
+The lights were put out, the schoolhouse door locked, and Amanda and
+Lyman started off on the dark country road. Peals of merry laughter
+floated back to them occasionally from a gay crowd of young people who
+were also going home from the Spelling Bee. But there were none near
+enough to hear what most wonderful thing Lyman had to say to Amanda.
+
+"Amanda," he lost no time in broaching the subject, "I said I have
+something to tell you. I meant, to ask you."
+
+"Yes? What is it?"
+
+"Will you marry me?"
+
+Before the astonished girl could answer, he put his arms about her and
+drew her near, as though there could be no possibility of an
+unfavorable reply.
+
+She flung away from him, indignant. "Lyman," she said, with hot anger
+in her voice, "you better wait once till I say yes before you try
+that!"
+
+"Why, Amanda! Now, sweetheart, none of that temper! You can't get cross
+when I ask you anything like that! I want to marry you. I've always
+wanted it. I picked you for my sweetheart when we were both children.
+I've always thought you're the dandiest girl I could find. Ever since
+we were kids I've planned of the time when we were old enough to marry.
+I just thought to-night, when I saw several fellows looking at you as
+though they'd like to have you, I better get busy and ask you before
+some other chap turns your head. I'll be good to you and treat you
+right, Amanda. Of course, I'm in college yet, but I'll soon be through,
+and then I expect to get a good position, probably in some big city.
+We'll get out of this slow country section and live where there's some
+life and excitement. You know I'll be rich some day, and then you'll
+have everything you want. Come on, honey, tell me, are we engaged?"
+
+"Well, I should say not!" the girl returned with cruel frankness. "You
+talk as though I were a piece of furniture you could just walk into a
+store and select and buy and then own! You've been taking immeasurably
+much for granted if you have been thinking all those things you just
+spoke about."
+
+"But what don't you like about me?" The young man was unable to grasp
+the fact that his loyal love could be unrequited. "I'm decent."
+
+"Well, that's very important, but there's more than that necessary when
+two persons think of marrying. You asked me,--I'll tell you--I never
+cared for you. I don't like your principles, your way of sneering at
+poor people, your laxity in many things--"
+
+"For instance?" he asked.
+
+"For instance: the way you spelled stelliform to-night and won a prize
+for it."
+
+"Oh, that!" He laughed as though discovered in a huge joke. "Did you
+see that? Why, that was nothing. It was only a cheap book I got for the
+prize. I'll give the book back to you if that will square me in your
+eyes."
+
+"But don't you see, can't you see, it wasn't the cheap book that
+mattered? It's the thought that you'd be dishonest, a cheat."
+
+"Well," he snatched at the least straw, "here's your chance to reform
+me. If you marry me I'll be a different person. I'd do anything for
+you. You know love is a great miracle worker. Won't you give me a
+chance to show you how nearly I can live up to your standards and
+ideals?"
+
+Amanda, moved by woman's quick compassion, spurred by sympathy, and
+feeling the exaltation such an appeal always carries, felt her heart
+soften toward the man beside her. But her innate wisdom and her own
+strong hold on her emotions prevented her from doing any rash or
+foolish thing. Her voice was gentle as she answered, but there was a
+finality in it that the man should have noted.
+
+"I'm sorry, Lyman, but I can't do as you say. We can't will whom we
+will love. I know you and I would never be happy together."
+
+"But perhaps it will come to you." He was no easy loser. "I'll just
+keep on hoping that some day you'll care for me."
+
+"Don't do that. I'm positive, sure, that I'll never love you. You and I
+were never made for each other."
+
+But he refused to accept her answer as final. "Who knows, Amanda," he
+said lightly, yet with all the feeling he was capable of at that time,
+"perhaps you'll love and marry Lyman Mertzheimer yet! Stranger things
+than that have happened. I'm sorry about that word. It seemed just like
+a good joke to catch on to the right spelling that way and beat the
+others in the match. You are too strict, Amanda, too closely bound by
+the Lancaster County ideas of right and wrong. They are too narrow for
+these days."
+
+"Oh, no!" she said quickly. "Dishonesty is never right!"
+
+"Well," he laughed, "have it your way! See how docile I have become
+already! You'll reform me yet, I bet!"
+
+At the door of her home he bade her good-night and went off whistling,
+feeling only a slight unhappiness at her refusal to marry him. It was,
+he felt, but a temporary rebuff. She would capitulate some day. His
+consummate egotism buoyed his spirits and he went down the road
+dreaming of the day he'd marry Amanda Reist and of the wonderful gowns
+and jewels he would lavish upon her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AT THE MARKET
+
+
+The words of Lyman Mertzheimer lingered with Amanda for many days. He
+had seemed so confident, so arrogantly sure, of her ultimate surrender
+to his desire to marry her. Soon after the Spelling Bee he returned to
+his college and the girl sighed in relief that his presence was not
+annoying her. But she reckoned without the efficient United States mail
+service. The rejected lover wrote lengthy, friendly letters which she
+answered at long intervals by short, impersonal little notes.
+
+"Oh, yea," she said to herself one day, "why does it have to be Lyman
+Mertzheimer that falls in love with me? But he might as well fall out
+as soon as he can. I'll never marry him. I read somewhere that one girl
+said, 'I'd rather love what I cannot have, than have what I cannot
+love,' and that's just the way I feel about it. I won't marry Lyman
+Mertzheimer if I have to die Amanda Reist!"
+
+As soon as her school term was ended Amanda entered into the work of
+the farm. She helped Millie as much as possible in a determined effort
+to forget all about the man who wanted her and whom she did not want,
+and, more than that, to think less about her knight, her Sir Galahad,
+who evidently had no time to waste on girls.
+
+Millie appreciated Amanda's help. "There's one thing sure," she said
+proudly to Mrs. Reist, "our Amanda ain't lazy. It seems to abody she's
+workin' more'n ever this here spring. I guess mebbe she thinks she
+better get all the ins and outs o' housework so as she can do it right
+till she gets married once."
+
+"Ach, I guess Amanda ain't thinkin' of marryin' yet," said the mother.
+
+"You fool yourself," was Millie's wise answer. "Is there ever a woman
+born that don't think 'bout it? Women ain't made that way. There ain't
+one so ugly nor poor, nor dumb, that don't hanker about it sometimes,
+even if she knows it ain't for her."
+
+Here the entrance of Amanda cut short the discussion.
+
+"Millie," asked the girl, "shall I go to market with you this week?"
+
+"Why, yes. I'd be glad for you. Of course, you always help get things
+ready here and your Uncle Amos drives me in and helps to get the
+baskets emptied and the things on the counters, but I could use you in
+sellin'."
+
+"Then I'll come. This lovely spring weather makes me want to go. I like
+to see the people come in to buy flowers and early vegetables. It's
+like reading a page out of a romance to see the expressions on the
+faces of the city people as they buy the products of the country."
+
+"Ach, I don't know what you mean. I guess you got too much fine
+learnin' for me. But all I can see in market is people runnin' up one
+aisle and down the other to see where the onions or radishes is the
+cheapest."
+
+Amanda laughed. "That's part of the romance. It proves they are human."
+
+The following Saturday Amanda accompanied Millie to the Lancaster
+market to help dispose of the assortment of farm products the Reist
+stall always carried.
+
+Going to market in Lancaster is an interesting experience. In addition
+to the famous street markets, where farmers display their produce along
+the busy central streets of the city, there are indoor markets where
+crowds move up and down and buy butter, eggs and vegetables, and such
+Pennsylvania Dutch specialties as mince meat, cup cheese, sauerkraut,
+pannhaus, apple butter, fresh sausage and smear cheese. While lovers of
+flowers choose from the many old-fashioned varieties--straw flowers,
+zinnias, dahlias.
+
+The Reist stall was one of the prominent stalls of the market. Twice
+every week Millie "tended market" there. On the day before market
+several members of the Reist household were kept busy preparing all the
+produce, and the next day before dawn Uncle Amos hitched the horse to
+the big covered wagon and he and Millie, sometimes Amanda and Philip,
+drove over the dark country roads to the city.
+
+Amanda enjoyed the work. She arranged the glistening domes of cup
+cheese, placed the fresh eggs in small baskets, uncovered one of the
+bags of dried corn untied the cloth cover from a gray earthen crock of
+apple butter, and then stood and looked about the market house. She
+felt the human interest it never failed to waken in her. Behind many
+stalls stood women in the quaint garb of the Church of the Brethren or
+Mennonite. But quaintest of all were the Amish.
+
+The Amish are the plainest and quaintest of the plain sects that
+flourish in Lancaster County. Unlike their kindred sects, who wear
+plain garb, they are partial to gay colors in dress. So it is no
+unusual sight to see Amish women wearing dresses of such colors as
+forest green, royal purple, king's blue or garnet. But the gay dress is
+always plainly made, after the model of their sect, generally partially
+subdued by a great black apron, a black pointed cape over the shoulders
+and a big black bonnet which almost hides the face of its wearer and
+necessitates a full-face gaze to disclose the identity of the woman.
+The strings of the thick white lawn cap are invariably tied in a flat
+bow that lies low on the chest.
+
+The Amish men are equally interesting in appearance. They wear broad-
+brimmed hats with low crowns. Their clothes are so extremely plain that
+buttons, universally deemed indispensable, are taboo and their place is
+filled by the inconspicuous hook-and-eye, which style has brought upon
+them the sobriquet, "Hook-and-eye people."
+
+However, interesting as the men and women of the Amish faith are in
+their dress, they are eclipsed in that aspect by the Amish children.
+These are invariably dressed as exact replicas of their parents. Little
+boys, mere children of three and four years, wear long trousers, tight
+jackets, blocked hair and broad-brimmed, low-crowned hats. Little girls
+of tender years wear brightly colored woolen dresses, one-piece aprons
+of black sateen or colored chambray, and the picturesque big stiff
+bonnets of the faith.
+
+A stranger in Lancaster County seeing an Amish family group might
+easily wonder if he had not been magically transported to some secluded
+spot of Europe, far from the beaten paths of modernity. But in the
+cosmopolitan population of Lancaster the Amish awakes a mere moment's
+interest to the majority of observers. If a bit of envy steals into the
+heart of the little Amish girl who stands at the Square and sees a
+child in white organdie and pink sash tripping along with her feet in
+silk socks and white slippers, of what avail is it? The hold of family
+customs is strong among them and the world and its allurements and
+vanities are things to be left stringently alone.
+
+To Amanda Reist, the Amish children made strong appeal. Their presence
+was one of the reasons she enjoyed tending market. Many stories she
+wove in her imagination about the little lads in their long trousers
+and the tiny girls in their big bonnets.
+
+But when the marketing was in full swing Amanda had scant time for any
+weaving of imaginary stories. Purchasers stopped at the stall and in a
+short time the produce was sold, with the exception of cheese and eggs
+which had been ordered the previous week.
+
+"Ach," complained Millie, "now if these people would fetch this cheese
+and the eggs we'd be done and could go home. Our baskets are all empty
+but them. But it seems like some of these here city folks can't get to
+market till eight o'clock. They have to sleep till seven."
+
+She was interrupted by the approach of a young girl, fashionably
+dressed.
+
+"Why," exclaimed Amanda, "here comes Isabel Souders, one of the
+Millersville girls."
+
+Isabel Souders was a girl of the butterfly type, made for sunshine,
+beauty, but not intended, apparently, for much practical use. Like the
+butterfly, her excuse for being was her beauty. Pretty, with dark hair,
+Amanda sometimes had envied her during days at the Normal School. Well
+dressed, petted and spoiled by well-to-do parents who catered to her
+whims, she seemed, nevertheless, an attractive girl in manner as well
+as in appearance. At school something like friendship had sprung up
+between Amanda and the city girl, no doubt each attracted to the other
+by the very directness of their opposite personalities and tastes.
+
+Isabel Souders was a year younger than Amanda. She lacked all of the
+latter's ambition. Music and Art and having a good time were the things
+that engrossed her attention. At Millersville she had devoted her time
+to the pursuit of the three. Professors and hall teachers knew that the
+moving spirit of many harmless pranks was Isabel, but she had a way of
+glossing things, shedding blame without causing innocent ones to
+suffer, that somehow endeared her to students and teachers alike.
+
+That market day she came laughing down the market aisle to greet
+Amanda.
+
+"Hello, Amanda! What do you think of me, here at this early hour of the
+day? Pin a medal on me! But it was so glorious a day I felt like doing
+something out of the ordinary. I promised one of the Lancaster girls
+who is at school now that I'd ask you about the pink moccasins. Are
+they out yet?"
+
+"Just out. Why?"
+
+"This girl wants one for her collection. I remembered you had a perfect
+one in your lot of flowers at school and I said I'd see you about
+them."
+
+"They'll be at their best next Saturday."
+
+"Next Saturday--dear, Helen's going home over the week-end. Oh, could I
+come out and get one for her?"
+
+"Yes. I'll be glad to take you where they grow. I have a special haunt.
+If no botanizers or flower hunters find my spot, we'll get a beauty for
+your friend."
+
+"You're the same old darling, Amanda," said the girl sweetly. "Then
+I'll be out to your house Saturday afternoon. How do I get there?"
+
+"Take the car to Oyster Point, then walk till you find a mail-box with
+our name on it, and there I'll be found."
+
+"Thank you, Amanda, you are a dear! I'll be there for the pink
+moccasin. Won't it be romantic to hunt for such lovely things as they
+are? You're perfectly sweet to bother about it and offer to take me."
+
+"Oh, I don't mind doing that. I'll enjoy it. Finding the wild pink
+lady-slipper is a real joy."
+
+Unselfish Amanda, she could not dream of what would come out of that
+little hunt for the pink moccasin!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PINK MOCCASINS
+
+
+The pink moccasin, the largest of our native orchids, is easily the
+queen of the rare woodland spot in which it grows. Its flower of bright
+rose pink, veined with red, is held with the stalwart erectness of an
+Indian, whose love of solitude and quiet woods it shares.
+
+To Amanda it was one of the loveliest flowers of the woods. She always
+counted the days as the time drew near when the moccasins bloomed.
+
+When Isabel Souders arrived at the Reist farmhouse she found Amanda
+ready with basket and trowel for the lady-slipper hunt. Amanda had put
+on a simple white dress and green-and-white sun hat. She looked with
+bewilderment at the city girl's attire, but said nothing just then.
+They stopped long enough for Isabel to meet the mistress of the home
+and then they went down the road to the Crow Hill schoolhouse.
+
+Suddenly Isabel stood still and panted. "Oh--Manda--you _can_ run!
+Have compassion on me. My hair will be all tumbled after such mad
+walking, and my organdie torn."
+
+"Hair!" echoed the country girl with a laugh. "Who thinks about hair on
+a moccasin hunt? You should not go flower hunting in city clothes. With
+your pink and white dress and lovely Dresden sash, silk stockings and
+low shoes, you look more fit for a dance than a ramble after deep woods
+flowers, such as moccasins. But we might as well go on now."
+
+She led the way across the school-yard, climbed nimbly over the rail
+fence and laughed at Isabel's clumsy imitation of her. Pink azaleas
+grew in great bushes of bloom throughout the woods. Isabel would have
+stopped to pick some but Amanda said, "That withers easily. Better pick
+them when we come back."
+
+They followed a narrow path, so narrow that later the summer luxuriant
+growth of underbrush would almost obliterate it. But Amanda knew the
+way to her spot. Deeper into the woods they delved, past bowers of pink
+azalea and closely growing branches of trees whose tender green foliage
+was breaking into summer growth. The bright May sunshine dripped
+through the green and dappled the ground in little discs of gold.
+
+Suddenly the path led up-hill in a steep grade. Amanda stopped and
+leaned against a slender sapling.
+
+"Stand here and look up," she invited.
+
+Isabel obeyed, her gaze traveling searchingly along the steep trail.
+
+"Oh, the beauties!" she cried as she discovered the pink flowers. "The
+beauties! Oh, there are more of them! And still more! Oh, Amanda!"
+
+Before them was Amanda's haunt of the pink moccasin. From the low
+underbrush of spring growth rose several dozen gorgeously beautiful
+pink lady-slippers, each alone on a thick stem with two broad leaves
+spreading their green beauty near the base. What miracle had brought
+the rare shy plants so near the dusty road where rattling wagons and
+gliding automobiles sped on their busy way?
+
+"May I pick them?" asked the city girl.
+
+"Yes, but only one root. I'll dig that up with the trowel. That's for
+your friend's botany specimen. The rest we'll pull up gently and we'll
+get flower, stem and leaves and leave the roots in the ground for other
+years. I never pick all of the flowers. I leave some here in the woods
+--it seems they belong here and I can't bring myself to walk off with
+every last one of them in my arms and leave the hill desolate."
+
+"You _are_ a queer girl!" was the frank statement of the city
+girl. "But you're a dear, just the same."
+
+They picked a number of the largest flowers.
+
+"That's enough," Amanda declared.
+
+Isabel laughed. "I'd take every one if it were my haunt."
+
+"And then other people might come here after some and find the place
+robbed of all its blooms."
+
+"Oh," said the other girl easily, "I look out for Isabel. Now, please,
+may I pick some of that pretty wild azalea?" she asked teasingly as
+they came down the hill.
+
+"Help yourself. That isn't rare. You couldn't take all of that if you
+tried."
+
+So Isabel gathered branches of the pink bloom until her arms were
+filled with it and the six moccasins in her hand almost overshadowed.
+
+As the two girls reached the edge of the woods and climbed over the
+fence into the school-yard Martin Landis came walking down the road.
+
+"Hello," he called gaily. "Been robbing the woods, Amanda?"
+
+"Aren't they lovely?" she asked. Then when he drew near she introduced
+him to the girl beside her.
+
+Martin Landis was not a blind man. A pretty girl, dark-eyed and dusky-
+haired, her arms full of pink azaleas, her lips parted in a smile above
+the flowers, and that smile given to him--it was too pretty a picture
+to fail in making an impression upon him.
+
+Amanda saw the look of keen interest in the eyes of the girl and her
+heart felt heavy. What fortune had brought the two together? Had the
+Fates designed the meeting of Isabel and Martin? "Oh, now I've done
+it!" thought Amanda. "Isabel wants what she wants and generally gets
+it. Pray heaven, she won't want 'My Martin!'"
+
+Similar thoughts disturbed her as they stepped on the sunny road once
+more and stood there talking. With a gay laugh Isabel took the finest
+pink moccasin from her bunch and handed it to Martin. "Here, I'll be
+generous," she said in friendly tones.
+
+"Thank you, Miss Souders." The reply was accompanied with a smile of
+pleasure.
+
+A low laugh rippled from the girl's red lips. Amanda's ears tingled so
+she did not understand the exchange of light talk. The fear and
+jealousy in her heart dulled her senses to all save them, but she
+laughed, said good-bye, and hid her feelings as she and Isabel went
+down the road to the Reist farmhouse.
+
+"Amanda," the other girl said effusively, "what a fine young man! Is he
+your beau?"
+
+"No. Certainly not! I have no beau. I've known Martin Landis ever since
+I was born, almost. He lives down the road a piece. He's a nice chap."
+
+"Splendid! Fine! Such eyes, such wonderfully expressive gray eyes I
+have never seen. And he has such a strong face. Of course, his clothes
+are a bit shabby. He'd be great if he fixed up."
+
+"Yes," Amanda agreed mechanically. She was ill-pleased with the
+dissection of her knight.
+
+Mrs. Reist, with true rural, Pennsylvania Dutch hospitality, invited
+Isabel to have supper with them, an invitation readily accepted. At the
+close of the meal Isabel said suddenly to Mrs. Reist, "How would you
+like to have me board with you for a few weeks--a month, probably?"
+
+"Why, I don't know. All right, I guess, if Millie, here, don't think it
+makes too much work. Poor Millie's got the worst of all the work to do.
+I ain't so strong, and there's much always to do. Of course, Amanda
+helps, but none of us do as much as Millie."
+
+"But me, don't I get paid for it, and paid good?" asked the hired girl,
+sending a loving glance at Mrs. Reist. "Far as I go it's all right to
+have Isabel come for a while. Mebbe she can help, too, sometimes with
+the work."
+
+"I wouldn't be much help, I'm afraid. I never peeled a potato in my
+life."
+
+Millie looked at the girl with slightly concealed disfavor. "Why,
+that's a funny way, now, to bring up a girl! I guess it's time you
+learn such things once! You dare come, and I'll show you how to do a
+little work. But why do you want to board when your folks live just in
+Lancaster?"
+
+"Father and Mother are going to the Elks' Convention and to California.
+They expect to be gone about a month. I was going to stay in Lancaster
+with my aunt, but I just thought how much nicer it would be to spend
+that time in the country."
+
+"Well, I guess, too!" Millie was quick to understand how one would
+naturally prefer the country to the city.
+
+So it was settled that Isabel Souders was to spend June at the Reist
+farmhouse. Everybody concerned appeared well pleased with the
+arrangement. But Amanda's heart hurt. "Why did I take her for those
+moccasins?" she thought drearily after Isabel had gone back to the city
+with her precious flowers. "I know Martin will fall in love with her
+and she with him. Oh, I'm a mean, detestable thing! But I wish she'd go
+to the coast with her parents!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE BOARDER
+
+
+The big automobile that brought Isabel Souders to the Reist farmhouse
+one day early in June brought with her a trunk, a suitcase, a bag, an
+umbrella and a green parasol.
+
+Aunt Rebecca was visiting there that day and she followed Amanda to the
+front door to receive the boarder.
+
+"My goodness," came the exclamation as the luggage was carried in, "is
+that girl comin' here for good, with all _that_ baggage? And what
+did you let her come here for on a Friday? That's powerful bad luck!"
+
+"For me," thought Amanda as she went to meet Isabel.
+
+"See," the newcomer pointed to her trunk, "I brought some of my
+pretties along. I'll have to make hay while the sun shines. I'll have
+to make the most of this opportunity to win the heart of some country
+youth. Amanda, dear, wouldn't I be a charming farmer's wife? Can you
+visualize me milking cows, for instance?"
+
+"No," answered Amanda, "I'd say that you were cut out for a different
+role." There was a deeper meaning in the country girl's words than the
+flighty city girl could read.
+
+"Just the same," went on the newcomer, "I'm going to have one wonderful
+time in the country. You are such a dear to want me here and to take me
+into the family. I want to do just all the exciting things one reads
+about as belonging to life in the country. I am eager to climb trees
+and chase chickens and be a regular country girl for a month."
+
+"Then I hope you brought some old clothes," was the practical reply.
+
+"Not old, but plain little dresses for hard wear. I knew I'd need
+them."
+
+Later, as Amanda watched the city girl unpack, she smiled ruefully at
+the plain little dresses for hard wear. Her observant eye told her that
+the little dresses of gingham and linen must have cost more than her
+own "best dresses." It was a very lavish wardrobe Isabel had selected
+for her month on the farm. Silk stockings and crepe de chine underwear
+were matched in fineness by the crepe blouses, silk dresses, airy
+organdies, a suit of exquisite tailoring and three hats for as many
+different costumes. The whole outfit would have been adequate and
+appropriate for parades on the Atlantic City boardwalk or a saunter
+down Peacock Alley of a great hotel, but it was entirely too elaborate
+for a Lancaster County farmhouse.
+
+Millie, running in to offer her services in unpacking, stood speechless
+at the display of clothes. "Why," she almost stammered, "what in the
+world do you want with all them fancy things here? Them's party
+clothes, ain't?"
+
+"No." Isabel shook her head. "Some are to wear in the evening and the
+plainer ones are afternoon dresses, and the linen and gingham ones are
+for morning wear."
+
+"Well, I be! What don't they study for society folks! A different dress
+for every time of the day! What would you think if you had to dress
+like I do, with my calico dress on all day, only when I wear my lawn
+for cool or in winter a woolen one for warm?"
+
+Millie went off, puzzled at the ways of society.
+
+"Is she just a servant?" asked Isabel when they heard her heavy tread
+down the stairs.
+
+"She isn't _just_ anything! She's a jewel! Mother couldn't do
+without Millie. We've had her almost twenty years. We can leave
+everything to her and know it will be taken care of. Why, Millie's as
+much a part of the family as though she really belonged to it. When
+Phil and I were little she was always baking us cookies in the shape of
+men or birds, and they always had big raisin eyes. Millie's a treasure
+and we all think of her as being one of the family."
+
+"Mother says that's just the reason she won't hire any Pennsylvania
+Dutch girls; they always expect to be treated as one of the family. We
+have colored servants. You can teach them their place."
+
+"I see. I suppose so," agreed Amanda, while she mentally appraised the
+girl before her and thought, "Isabel Souders, a little more democracy
+wouldn't be amiss for you."
+
+Although the boarder who came to the Reist farmhouse was unlike any of
+the members of the family, she soon won her way into their affections.
+Her sweet tenderness, her apparent childlike innocence, appealed to the
+simple, unsuspicious country folk. Shaping her actions in accordance
+with the old Irish saying, "It's better to have the dogs of the street
+for you than against you," Isabel made friends with Millie and went so
+far as to pare potatoes for her at busy times. Philip and Uncle Amos
+were non-committal beyond a mere, "Oh, I guess she's all right. Good
+company, and nice to have around."
+
+The first Sunday of the boarder's stay in the country she invited
+herself to accompany the family to Mennonite church. Amanda appeared in
+a simple white linen dress and a semi-tailored black hat, but when
+Isabel tripped down the stairs the daughter of the house was quite
+eclipsed. Isabel's dark hair was puffed out becomingly about cheeks
+that had added pink applied to them. In an airy orchid organdie dress
+and hat to match, white silk stockings and white buckskin pumps, she
+looked ready for a garden party. According to all the ways of human
+nature more than one little Mennonite maid in that meeting-house must
+have cast sidelong glances at the beautiful vision, and older members
+of the plain sect must have thought the old refrain, "Vanity, vanity,
+all is vanity!"
+
+Aunt Rebecca was at church that morning and came to the Reist home for
+dinner. She sought out Millie in the kitchen and gave her unsolicited,
+frank opinion--"My goodness, I don't think much of that there Isabel
+from Lancaster! She's too much stuck up. Such a get-up for a Sunday and
+church like she has on to-day! She looks like a regular peacock. It'll
+go good if she don't spoil our Amanda yet till she goes home."
+
+"Ach, I guess not. She's a little fancier than I like to see girls, but
+then she's a nice girl and can't do Amanda no hurt."
+
+"She means herself too big, that's what! And them folks ain't the right
+kind for Amanda to know. It might spite you all yet for takin' her in
+to board. Next thing she'll be playin' round with some of the country
+boys here, and mebbe take one that Amanda would liked to get. There's
+no trustin' such gay dressers. I found that out long a'ready."
+
+"Ach," said Millie, "I guess Amanda don't like none of the boys round
+here in Crow Hill."
+
+"How do you know? Guess Amanda ain't no different from the rest of us
+in petticoats. You just wait once and see how long it goes till the
+boys commence to hang round this fancy Isabel."
+
+Millie hadn't long to wait. Through Mrs. Landis, who had been to
+Mennonite church and noticed a stranger with the Reist family, Martin
+Landis soon knew of the boarder. That same evening he dressed in his
+best clothes. He had not forgotten the dark eyes of Isabel smiling to
+him over the pink azaleas.
+
+"Where you goin', Mart?" asked his mother. "Over to Landisville to
+church?"
+
+"No--just out for a little while."
+
+"Take me with," coaxed the littlest Landis, now five years old and the
+ninth in line.
+
+"Ach, go on!" spoke up an older Landis boy, "what d'you think Mart
+wants with you? He's goin' to see his girl. Na, ah!" he cried gleefully
+and clapped his hands, "I guessed it! Look at him blushin', Mom!"
+
+Martin made a grab for the boy and shook him. "You've got too much
+romantic nonsense in your head," he told the teasing brother. "Next
+thing you know you'll be a poet!" He released the squirming boy and
+rubbed a finger round the top of his collar as he turned to his mother.
+
+"I'm just going down to Reists' a while. I met Miss Souders a few weeks
+ago and thought it would be all right for me to call. The country must
+seem quiet to her after living in the city."
+
+"Of course it's all right, Martin," agreed his mother. "Just you go
+ahead."
+
+But after he left, Mrs. Landis sat a long while on the porch, thinking
+about her eldest boy, her first-born. "He's goin' to see that doll
+right as soon as she comes near, and yet Amanda he don't go to see when
+she's alone, not unless he wants her to go for a walk or something like
+that. If only he'd take to Amanda! She's the nicest girl in Lancaster
+County, I bet! But he looks right by her. This pretty girl, in her
+fancy clothes and with her flippy ways--I know she's flippy, I watched
+her in church--she takes his eye, and if she matches her dress she'll
+go to his head like hard cider. Ach, sometimes abody feels like puttin'
+blinders on your boys till you get 'em past some women."
+
+A little later the troubled mother walked back to the side porch, where
+her husband was enjoying the June twilight while he kept an eye on four
+of the younger members of the family as they were quietly engaged in
+their Sabbath recreation of piecing together picture puzzles.
+
+"Martin," she said as she sat beside the man, "I've been thinkin' about
+our Mart."
+
+"Yes? What?"
+
+"Why, I feel we ain't doin' just right by him. You know he don't like
+farmin' at all. He's anxious to get more schoolin' but he ain't
+complainin'. He wants to fit himself so he can get in some office or
+bank in the city and yet here he works on the farm helpin' us like he
+really liked to do that kind of work. Now he's of age, and since Walter
+and Joe are big enough to help you good and we're gettin' on our feet a
+little since the nine babies are out of the dirt, as they say still,
+why don't we give Martin a chance once?"
+
+"Well, why not? I'm agreed, Ma. He's been workin' double, and when I'm
+laid up with that old rheumatism he runs things good as I could. We got
+the mortgage paid off now. How'd it be if we let him have the tobacco
+money? I was thinkin' of puttin' in the electric lights and fixin'
+things up a little with it, but if you'd rather give it to Mart--"
+
+"I would. Much rather! I used oil lamps this long and I guess I can
+manage with them a while yet."
+
+"All right, but as soon as we can we'll get others. Mart's young and
+ought to have his chance, like you say. I don't know what for he'd
+rather sit over a lot o' books in some hot little office or stand in a
+stuffy bank and count other people's money when he could work on a farm
+and be out in the open air, but then we ain't all alike and I guess
+it's a good thing we ain't. We'll tell him he dare have time for goin'
+to Lancaster to school if he wants. Mebbe he'll be a lawyer or
+president some day, ain't, Ma?"
+
+"Ach, Martin, I don't think that would be so much. I'd rather have my
+children just plain, common people like we are. Mart's gone up to
+Reists' this evening."
+
+"So? To see Amanda, I guess."
+
+"Her or that boarder from Lancaster."
+
+"That ruffly girl we saw this morning?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ach, don't you worry, Ma. Our Mart won't run after that kind of a
+girl! Anyhow, not for long."
+
+At that moment the object of their discussion was approaching the Reist
+farmhouse. The entire household, Millie included, sat on the big front
+porch as the caller came down the road.
+
+"Look," said Philip, and began to sing softly. "Here comes a beau
+a-courting, a-courting---"
+
+"Phil!" chided Millie and Amanda in one breath.
+
+"Don't worry, Sis," said the irrepressible youth, "we'll gradually
+efface ourselves, one by one--we're very thoughtful. I'll flip a penny
+to see whether Isabel stays or you. Heads you win, tails she does."
+
+"Phil!"
+
+The vehement protest from his sister did not deter the boy from tossing
+the coin, which promptly rolled off the porch and fell into a bed of
+geraniums.
+
+"See," he continued, "even the Fates are uncertain which one of you
+will win. I suppose the battle's to the strongest this time. Oh, hello,
+Martin," he said graciously as the caller turned in at the gate, "Nice
+day, ain't it?"
+
+"What ails the boy?" asked Martin, laughing as he raised his hat and
+joined the group on the porch.
+
+"Martin," said Amanda after he had greeted Isabel and took his place on
+a chair near her, "you'd do me an everlasting favor if you'd turn that
+brother of mine up on your knees and spank him."
+
+"Now that I'd like to see!" spoke up Millie.
+
+"You would, Millie? You'd like to see me get that? After all the coal
+I've carried out of the cellar for you, and the other ways I've helped
+make your burden lighter--you'd sit and see me humiliated! Ingratitude!
+Even Millie turns against me. I'm going away from this crowd where I'm
+not appreciated."
+
+"Oh, you needn't affect such an air of martyrdom," his sister told him.
+"I know you have a book half read; you want to get back to that."
+
+"Say," said Uncle Amos, "these women, if they don't beat all! They
+ferret all the weak spots out a man. I say it ain't right."
+
+Later in the evening the older members of the household left the porch
+and the trio of eternal trouble--two girls and a man--were left alone.
+It was then the city girl exerted her most alluring wiles to be
+entertaining. The man had eyes and ears for her only. As Mrs. Landis
+once said, he looked past Amanda and did not see her. She sat in the
+shadow and bit her lip as her plumed knight paid court before the
+beauty and charm of another. The heart of the simple country girl
+ached. But Isabel smiled, flattered and charmed and did it so adeptly
+that instead of being obnoxious to the country boy it thrilled and
+held him like the voice of a Circe. They never noticed Amanda's
+silence. She could lean back in her chair and dream. She remembered
+the story of Ulysses and his wax-filled ears that saved him from the
+sirens; the tale of Orpheus, who drowned their alluring voices by
+playing on his instrument a music sweeter than theirs--ah, that was
+her only hope! That somewhere, deep in the heart of the man she loved
+was a music surpassing in sweetness the music of the shallow girl's
+voice which now seemed to sway him to her will. "If he is a man worth
+loving," she thought, "he'll see through the surface glamour of a girl
+like that." It was scant consolation, for she knew that only too
+frequently do noble men give their lives into the precarious keeping
+of frivolous, butterfly women.
+
+"Why so pensive?" the voice of Isabel pierced her revery.
+
+"Me--oh, I haven't had a chance to get a word in edgewise."
+
+"I was telling Mr. Landis he should go on with his studies. A
+correspondence course would be splendid for him if he can't get away
+from the farm for regular college work."
+
+"I'm going to write about that course right away," Martin said. "I'm
+glad I had this talk with you, Miss Souders. I'll do as you suggest--
+study nights for a time and then try to get into a bank in Lancaster.
+It is so kind of you to offer to see your father about a position. I'd
+feel in my element if I ever held a position in a real bank. I'll be
+indebted to you for life."
+
+"Oh," she disclaimed any credit, "your own merits would cause you to
+make good in the position. I am sure Father will be glad to help you.
+He has helped several young men to find places. All he asks in return
+is that they make good. I know you'd do that."
+
+When Martin Landis said good-night his earnest, "May I come again--
+soon?" was addressed to Isabel. She magnanimously put an arm about
+Amanda before she replied, "Certainly. We'll be glad to have you."
+
+"Oh," thought Amanda, "I'll be hating her pretty soon and then how will
+I ever endure having her around for a whole month! I'm a mean, jealous
+cat! Let Martin Landis choose whom he wants--I should worry!"
+
+She said good-night with a stoical attempt at indifference, thereby
+laying the first block of the hard, high barricade she meant to build
+about her heart. She would be no child to cry for the moon, the
+unattainable. If her heart bled what need to make a public exhibition
+of it! From that hour on the front porch she turned her back on her
+gay, merry, laughing girlhood and began the journey in the realm of
+womanhood, where smiles hide sorrows and the true feelings of the heart
+are often masked.
+
+The determination to meet events with dignity and poise came to her aid
+innumerable times during the days that followed. When Martin came to
+the Reist farmhouse with the news that his father was going to give him
+money for a course in a Business School in Lancaster it was to Isabel
+he told the tidings and from her he received the loudest handclaps.
+
+The city girl, rosy and pretty in her morning dresses, ensconced
+herself each day on the big couch hammock of the front porch to wave to
+Martin Landis as he passed on his way to the trolley that took him to
+his studies in the city. Sometimes she ran to the gate and tossed him a
+rose for his buttonhole. Later in the day she was at her post again,
+ready to ask pleasantly as he passed, "Well, how did school go to-day?"
+Such seemingly spontaneous interest spurred the young man to greater
+things ahead.
+
+Many evenings Martin sat on the Reist porch and he and Isabel laughed
+and chatted and sometimes half-absent-mindedly referred a question to
+Amanda. Frequently that young lady felt herself to be a fifth wheel and
+sought some diversion. Excuses were easy to find; the most palpable one
+was accepted with calm credulity by the infatuated young people.
+
+One day, when three weeks of the boarder's stay were gone, Lyman
+Mertzheimer came home from college, bringing with him a green roadster,
+the gift of his wealthy, indulgent father.
+
+He drew up to the Reist house and tooted his horn until Amanda ran into
+the yard to discover what the noise meant.
+
+"Good-morning, Lady Fair!" he called, laughing at her expression of
+surprise. "I thought I could make you come! Bump of curiosity is still
+working, I see. Wait, I'm coming in," he called after her as she turned
+indignantly and moved toward the house.
+
+"Please!" He called again as she halted, ashamed to be so lacking in
+cordiality. "I want to see you. That's a cold, cruel way to greet a
+fellow who's just come home from college and rushes over to see you
+first thing."
+
+He entered the yard and Amanda bade him, "Come up. Sit down," as she
+took a chair on the porch. "So you're back for the summer, Lyman."
+
+"Yes. Aren't you delighted?" He smiled at her teasingly. "I'm back to
+the 'sauerkraut patch' again. Glory, I wish Dad would sell out and move
+to some decent place."
+
+"Um," she grunted, refraining from speech.
+
+"Yes. I loathe this Dutch, poky old place. The only reason I'm glad to
+ever see it again is because you live here. That's the only excuse I
+have to be glad to see Lancaster County. And that reminds me, Amanda,
+have you forgotten what I told you at the Spelling Bee? Do you still
+feel you don't want to tackle the job of reforming me? Come, now," he
+pleaded, "give a fellow a bit of hope to go on."
+
+"I told you no, Lyman. I don't change my mind so easily."
+
+"Oh, you naughty girl!" came Isabel's sweet voice as she drifted to the
+porch. "I looked all over the house for you, Amanda, and here I find
+you entertaining a charming young man."
+
+Isabel was lovely as usual. Amanda introduced Lyman to her and as the
+honeyed words fell from the lips of the city girl the country girl
+stood contemplating the pair before her. "That's the first time," she
+thought, "I was glad to hear that voice. I do wish those two would be
+attracted to each other. They match in many ways."
+
+Lyman Mertzheimer was not seriously attracted to Isabel, but he was at
+times a keen strategist and the moment he saw the city girl an idea
+lodged in his brain. Here was a pretty girl who could, no doubt, easily
+be made to accept attentions from him. By Jove, he'd make Amanda
+jealous! He'd play with Isabel, shower attentions upon her until Amanda
+would see what she missed by snubbing a Mertzheimer!
+
+The following week was a busy one for Isabel. Lyman danced attendance
+every day. He developed a sudden affection for Lancaster County and
+took Isabel over the lovely roads of that Garden Spot. They visited the
+Cloister at Ephrata, the museum of antiques at Manheim, the beautiful
+Springs Park at Lititz, the interesting, old-fashioned towns scattered
+along the road. Over state highways they sped along in his green
+roadster, generally going like Jehu, furiously. The girl enjoyed the
+riding more than the society of the man. He was exulting in the thought
+that he must be peeving Amanda.
+
+Nevertheless, at the end of Isabel's visit, Lyman was obliged to
+acknowledge to himself, "All my fooling round with the other girl never
+phased Amanda! Kick me for a fool! I'll have to think up some other way
+to make her take notice of me."
+
+Martin Landis came in for the small portion those days. How could he
+really enjoy his evenings at the Reist house when Lyman Mertzheimer sat
+there like an evil presence with his smirking smile and his watchful
+eyes ever open! Some of the zest went out of Martin's actions. His
+exuberance decreased. It was a relief to him when the boarder's parents
+returned from their trip and the girl went home. He had her invitation
+to call at her home in Lancaster. Surely, there Lyman would not sit
+like the black raven of Poe's poem! Isabel would not forget him even
+when she was once more in the city! Martin Landis was beginning to
+think the world a fine old place, after all. He was going to school,
+had prospects of securing a position after his own desires, thanks to
+Isabel Souders, he had the friendship of a talented, charming city
+girl--what added bliss the future held for him he did not often dream
+about. The present held enough joy for him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+UNHAPPY DAYS
+
+
+That September Amanda went back to her second year of teaching at Crow
+Hill. She went bearing a heavy heart. It was hard to concentrate her
+full attention on reading, spelling and arithmetic. She needed
+constantly to summon all her will power to keep from dreaming and
+holding together her tottering castles in Spain.
+
+From the little Landis children, pupils in her school, she heard
+unsolicited bits of gossip about Martin--"Our Mart, he's got a girl in
+Lancaster."
+
+"Oh, you mustn't talk like that!" Amanda interrupted, feeling
+conscience stricken.
+
+"Ach, that don't matter," came the frank reply; "it ain't no secret.
+Pop and Mom tease him about it lots of times. He gets all dressed up
+still evenings and takes the trolley to Lancaster to see his girl."
+
+"Perhaps he goes in on business."
+
+"Business--you bet not! Not every week and sometimes twice a week would
+he go on business. He's got a girl and I heard Mom tell Pop in Dutch
+that she thinks it's that there Isabel that boarded at your house last
+summer once. Mom said she wished she could meet her, then she'd feel
+better satisfied. We don't want just anybody to get our Mart. But I
+guess anybody he'd pick out would be all right, don't you, Aman--I
+mean, Miss Reist?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so--of course she would," Amanda agreed.
+
+One winter day Martin himself mentioned the name of Isabel to Amanda.
+He stopped in at the Reist farm, seeming his old friendly self. "I came
+in to tell you good news," he told Amanda.
+
+"Now what?" asked Millie, who was in the room with Mrs. Reist and
+Amanda.
+
+"I've been appointed to a place in the bank at Lancaster."
+
+"Good! I'm so glad, Martin!" cried the girl with genuine interest and
+joy. "It's what you wanted, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes. But I would never have landed it so soon if it hadn't been for
+Mr. Souders, Isabel's father. He's influential in the city and he
+helped me along. Now it's up to me to make good."
+
+"You'll do that, I'm sure you will!" came the spontaneous reply.
+
+Martin looked at the bright, friendly face of Amanda. "Why," he
+thought, "how pleased she is! She's a great little pal." For a moment
+the renewed friendliness of childhood days was awakened in him.
+
+"Say, Amanda," he said, "we haven't had a good tramp for ages. I've
+been so busy with school"--he flushed, thinking of the city girl to
+whom he had been giving so much of his time--"and--well, I've been at
+it pretty hard for a while. Now I'll just keep on with my
+correspondence work but I'll have a little more time. Shall we take a
+tramp Sunday afternoon?"
+
+"If you want to," the girl responded, her heart pounding with pleasure.
+
+Amanda dressed her prettiest for that winter tramp. She remembered
+Queen Esther, who had put on royal apparel to win the favor of the
+king. The country girl, always making the most of her good features and
+coloring, was simply, yet becomingly dressed when she met Martin in the
+Reist sitting-room. In her brown suit, little brown hat pulled over her
+red hair, a brown woolly scarf thrown over her shoulders, she looked
+like a creature of the woodland she loved.
+
+That walk in the afternoon sunshine which warmed slightly the cold,
+snowy earth, was a happy one to both. Some of the old comradeship
+sprang up, mushroom-like, as they climbed the rail fence and entered
+the woods where they had so often sought wild flowers and birds' nests.
+Martin spoke frankly of his work and his ambition to advance. Amanda
+was a good listener, a quality always appreciated by a man. When he had
+told his hopes and aspirations to her he began to take interest in her
+affairs. Her school, funny incidents occurring there, her basket work
+with the children--all were talked about, until Amanda in dazed fashion
+brushed her hand across her eyes and wondered whether Isabel and her
+wiles was all an hallucination.
+
+But the subject came round all too soon. They were speaking of the
+Victrola recently purchased for the Crow Hill school when Martin asked,
+"Have you ever heard Isabel Souders play?"
+
+"Yes, at Millersville. She often played at recitals."
+
+"She's great! Isn't she great at a piano! She's been good enough to
+invite me in there. Sometimes she plays for me. The first time she
+played ragtime but I told her I hate that stuff. She said she's
+versatile, can please any taste. So now she entertains me with those
+lovely, dreamy things that almost talk to you. She's taught me to play
+cards, too. I haven't said anything about it at home, they wouldn't
+understand. Mother and Father still consider cards wicked. I dare say
+it wouldn't be just the thing for Mennonites to play cards, but I fail
+to see any harm in it."
+
+"No--but your mother would be hurt if she knew it."
+
+"She won't know it. I wouldn't do anything wrong, but Mother doesn't
+understand about such things. The only place I play is at Isabel's
+home. It's an education to be taken into a fine city home like theirs
+and treated as an equal."
+
+"An equal! Why, Martin Landis, you are an equal! If a good, honest
+country boy isn't as good as a butterfly city girl I'd like to know who
+is! Aren't your people and mine as good as any others in the whole
+world? Even if the men do eat in their shirt sleeves and the women
+can't tell an oyster fork from a salad one." The fine face of the girl
+was flushed and eager as she went on, "Of course, these days young
+people should learn all the little niceties of correct table manners so
+they can eat anywhere and not be embarrassed. But I'll never despise
+any middle-aged or old people just because they eat with a knife or
+pour coffee into a saucer or commit any other similar transgression.
+It's a matter of man-made style, after all. When our grannies were
+young the proper way to do was to pour coffee into the saucers. Why, we
+have a number of little glass plates made just for the purpose of
+holding the cup after the coffee had been poured into the saucer. The
+cup-plates saved the cloth from stains of the drippings on the cup. I
+heard a prominent lecturer say we should not be so quick to condemn
+people who do not eat as we think they should. He said, apropos of
+eating with a knife or, according to present usage, with a fork, that
+it's just a little matter of the difference between pitching it in or
+shoveling it in."
+
+Martin laughed. "There's nothing of the snob about you, is there? I
+believe you see the inside of people without much looking on the
+exterior."
+
+"I hope so," she said. "Shall we turn back now? I'm cold."
+
+She was cold, but it was an inward reaction from the joy of being with
+Martin again. His words about Isabel and his glad recounting of the
+hours he spent with her chilled the girl. She felt that he was becoming
+more deeply entangled in the web Isabel spun for him. To the country
+girl's observant, analytical mind it seemed almost impossible that a
+girl of Isabel's type could truly love a plain man like Martin Landis
+or could ever make him happy if she married him.
+
+"It's just one more conquest for her to boast about," Amanda thought.
+"Just as the mate of the Jack-in-the-pulpit invites the insects to her
+honey and then catches them in a hopeless trap, so women like Isabel
+play with men like Martin. No wonder the root of the Jack-in-the-pulpit
+is bitter--it's symbolic of the aftermath of the honeyed trap."
+
+Worried, unhappy though she was, Amanda's second year of teaching was,
+in the opinion of the pupils, highly successful. Some of the wonder-
+thoughts of her heart she succeeded in imparting to them in that little
+rural school. As she tugged at the bell rope and sent the ding-dong
+pealing over the countryside with its call that brought the children
+from many roads and byways she felt an irresistible thrill pulsating
+through her. It was as if the big bell called, "Here, come here, come
+here! We'll teach you knowledge from books, and that rarer thing,
+wisdom. We'll teach you in this little square room the meaning of the
+great outside world, how to meet the surging tide of the cities and
+battle squarely. We'll show you how to carry to commerce and business
+and professional life the honesty and wholesomeness and sincerity of
+the country. We'll teach you that sixteen ounces make a pound and show
+you why you must never forget that, but must keep exalted and unstained
+the high standards of courage and right."
+
+Some world-old philosophical conception of the insignificance of her
+own joys and sorrows as compared with the magnitude of the earth and
+its vast solar system came to her at times.
+
+"My life," she thought, "seems so important to me and yet it is so
+little a thing to weep about if my days are not as full of joy as I
+want them to be. I must step out from myself, detach myself and get a
+proper perspective. After all, my little selfish wants and yearnings
+are so small a portion of the whole scheme of things.
+
+  'For all that laugh, and all that weep
+  And all that breathe are one
+  Slight ripple on the boundless deep
+  That moves, and all is gone.'"
+
+Looking back over the winter months of that second year of teaching
+Amanda sometimes wondered how she was able to do her work in the
+schoolroom acceptably. But the strain of being a stoic left its marks
+upon her.
+
+"My goodness," said Aunt Rebecca one day in February when a blizzard
+held her snowbound at the Reist farmhouse, "that girl must be doin' too
+much with this teachin' and basket makin' and who knows what not! She
+looks pale and sharp-chinned. Ain't you noticed?" she asked Mrs. Reist.
+
+"I thought last week she looked pinched and I asked if she felt bad but
+she said she felt all right, she was just a little bit tired sometimes.
+I guess teachin' forty boys and girls ain't any too easy, Becky."
+
+"My goodness, no! I'd rather tend hogs all day! But why don't you make
+a big crock of boneset tea and make her take a good swallow every day?
+There's nothin' like that to build abody up. She looks real bad--you
+don't want her to go in consumption like that Ellie Hess over near my
+place."
+
+"Oh, mercy no! Becky, how you scare abody! I'll fix her up some boneset
+tea to-day yet. I got some on the garret that Millie dried last
+summer."
+
+Amanda protested against the boneset but to please her mother she
+promised to swallow faithfully the doses of bitter tea. She thought
+whimsically as she drank it, "First time I knew that boneset tea is
+good for an aching heart. Boneset tea--it isn't that I want! I'm afraid
+I'm losing hold of my old faith in the ultimate triumph of sincerity
+and truth. Seems that men, even men like Martin Landis, don't want the
+old-fashioned virtues in a woman. They don't look for womanly
+qualities, but prefer to be amused and entertained and flattered and
+appealed to through the senses. Brains and heart don't seem to count. I
+wish I could be a butterfly! But I can never be like Isabel. When she
+is near I feel like a bump-on-a-log. My tongue is like lead while she
+chatters and holds the attention of Martin. She compels attention and
+crowds out everybody else. Oh, yea! as we youngsters used to say when
+things went wrong when we were little. Perhaps things will come out
+right some day. I'll just keep on taking that boneset tea!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE TROUBLE MAKER
+
+
+If "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" a man spurned in love
+sometimes runs a close second.
+
+One day in March Lyman Mertzheimer came home for the week-end. His
+first thought was to call at the Reist home.
+
+Amanda, outwardly improved--Millie said, "All because of that there
+boneset tea"--welcomed spring and its promise, but she could not extend
+to Lyman Mertzheimer the same degree of welcome.
+
+"It's that Lyman again," Millie reported after she had opened the door
+for the caller. "He looks kinda mad about something. What's he hangin'
+round here for all the time every time he gets home from school when
+abody can easy see you don't like him to come?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. He just drops in. I guess because we were youngsters
+together."
+
+"Um, mebbe," grunted Millie wisely to herself as Amanda went to see her
+visitor. "I ain't blind and neither did I come in the world yesterday.
+That Lyman's wantin' to be Amanda's beau and she don't want him. Guess
+he'll stand watchin' if he gets turned down. I never did like them
+Mertzheimers--all so up in the air they can hardly stand still to look
+at abody."
+
+Lyman was standing at the window, looking out gloomily. He turned as
+Amanda came into the room.
+
+"I had to come, Amanda--hang it, you keep a fellow on pins and needles!
+You wouldn't answer my letters--"
+
+"I told you not to write."
+
+"But why? Aren't you going to change your mind? I made up my mind long
+ago that I'd marry you some day and a Mertzheimer is a good deal like a
+bulldog when it comes to hanging on."
+
+"Lyman, why hash the thing over so often? I don't care for you. Go find
+some nice girl who will care for you."
+
+"Um," he said dejectedly, "I want you. I thought you just wanted to be
+coaxed, but I'm beginning to think you mean it. So you don't care for
+me--I suppose you'd snatch Martin Landis in a hurry if you could get
+him! But he's poor as a church mouse! You better tie him to your apron
+strings--that pretty Souders girl from Lancaster is playing her cards
+there--"
+
+Amanda sprang to her feet. "Lyman," she sputtered--"you--you better go
+before I make you sorry you said that."
+
+The luckless lover laughed, a reckless, demoniac peal. "Two can play at
+that game!" he told her. "You're so high and mighty that a Mertzheimer
+isn't good enough for you. But you better look out--we've got claws!"
+
+The girl turned and went out of the room. A moment later she heard the
+front door slammed and knew that Lyman had gone. His covert threat--
+what did he mean? What vengeance could he wreak on her? Oh, what a
+complicated riddle life had grown to be! She remembered Aunt Rebecca's
+warning that tears would have to balance all the laughter. How she
+yearned for the old, happy childhood days to come back to her! She
+clutched frantically at the quickly departing joy and cheerfulness of
+that far-off past.
+
+"I'm going to keep my sense of humor and my faith in things in spite of
+anything that comes to me," she promised herself, "even if they do have
+to give me boneset tea to jerk me up a bit!" She laughed at Millie's
+faith in the boneset tea. "I hope it also takes the meanness and hate
+out of my heart. Why, just now I hate Lyman! If he really cared for me
+I'd feel sorry for him, but he doesn't love me, he just wants to marry
+me because long ago he decided he would do so some day."
+
+In spite of her determination to be philosophical and cheerful, the
+memory of Lyman's threat returned to her at times in a baffling way.
+What could he mean? How could he harm her? His father was a director of
+the Crow Hill school, but pshaw! One director couldn't put her out of
+her place in the school!
+
+Lyman Mertzheimer had only a few days to carry out the plan formulated
+in his angry mind as he walked home after the tilt with Amanda.
+
+"I'll show her," he snorted, "the disagreeable thing! I'll show her
+what can happen when she turns down a Mertzheimer! The very name
+Mertzheimer means wealth and high standing! And she puts up her nose
+and tosses her red head at me and tells me she won't have me! She'll
+see what a Mertzheimer can do!"
+
+The elder Mertzheimer, school director, was not unlike his son. When
+the young man came to him with an exaggerated tale of the contemptible
+way Amanda had treated him, thrown him over as though he were nobody,
+Mr. Mertzheimer, Senior, sympathized with his aggrieved son and stormed
+and vowed he'd see if he'd vote for that red-headed snip of a teacher
+next year. The Reists thought they were somebody, anyhow, and they had
+no more money than he had, perhaps not so much. What right had she to
+be ugly to Lyman when he did her the honor to ask her to marry him? The
+snip! He'd show her!
+
+"But one vote won't keep her out of the school," said Lyman with
+diplomatic unconcern.
+
+"Leave it to me, boy! I'll talk a few of them over. There was some
+complaint last year about her not doing things like other school-
+teachers round here, and her not being a strict enough teacher. She
+teaches geography with a lot of dirt and water. She has the young ones
+scurrying round the woods and fields with nets to catch butterflies.
+And she lugs in a lot of corn husk and shows them how to make a few
+dinky baskets and thinks she's doing some wonderful thing. For all that
+she draws her salary and gets away with all that tomfoolery--guess
+because she can smile and humbug some people--them red-headed women are
+all like that, boy. She's not the right teacher for Crow Hill school
+and I'm going to make several people see it. Then let her twiddle her
+thumbs till she gets a place so near home and as nice as the Crow Hill
+school!"
+
+Mr. Mertzheimer, whose august dignity had been unpardonably offended,
+lost no time in seeing the other directors of the Crow Hill school. He
+mentioned nothing about the real grievance against Amanda, but played
+upon the slender string of her inefficiency, as talked about by the
+patrons. He presented the matter so tactfully that several of the men
+were convinced he spoke from a deep conviction that the interests of
+the community were involved and that in all fairness to the pupils of
+that rural school a new, competent teacher should be secured for the
+ensuing term. One director, being a man with the unfortunate addiction
+of being easily swayed by the opinions of others, was readily convinced
+by the plausible arguments of Mr. Mertzheimer that Amanda Reist was
+utterly unfit for the position she held.
+
+When all the directors had been thus casually imbued with antagonism,
+or, at least, suspicion, Mr. Mertzheimer went home, chuckling. He felt
+elated at the clever method he had taken to uphold the dignity of his
+son and punish the person who had failed to rightly respect that
+dignity. In a few weeks the County Superintendent of Schools would make
+his annual visit to Crow Hill, and if "a bug could be put in his ear"
+and he be influenced to show up the flaws in the school, everything
+would be fine! "Fine as silk," thought Mr. Mertzheimer. He knew a girl
+near Landisville who was a senior at Millersville and would be glad to
+teach a school like Crow Hill. He'd tell her to apply for the position.
+It would take about five minutes to put out that independent Amanda
+Reist and vote in the other girl--it just takes some people to plan!
+He, Mr. Mertzheimer, had planned it! Probably in his limited education
+he had never read that sententious line regarding what often happens to
+the best laid plans of mice and men!
+
+The Saturday following Mr. Mertzheimer's perfection of his plans Millie
+came home from market greatly excited.
+
+"Manda, Manda, come here once!" she called as she set her empty baskets
+on the kitchen table. "Just listen," she said to the girl, who came
+running. "I heard something to-day! That old Mertzheimer--he--he--oh,
+yea, why daren't I swear just this once! I'm that mad! That old
+Mertzheimer and the young one ought to be tarred and feathered!"
+
+"Why, Millie!" said Amanda, smiling at the unwonted agitation of the
+hired girl. "What's happened?"
+
+"Well, this mornin' two girls came to my stall and while they was
+standin' there and I waited on some other lady, they talked. One asked
+the other if she was goin' to teach next year, and what do you think
+she said--that a Mr. Mertzheimer had told her to apply for the Crow
+Hill school, that they wanted a new teacher there for another year! I
+didn't say nothin' to them or let on that I know the teacher of that
+school, but I thought a heap. So, you see, that sneakin' man is goin'
+to put you out if he at all can do it. And just because you won't take
+up with that pretty boy of his! Them Mertzheimer people think they own
+whole Crow Hill and can run everybody in it to suit themselves."
+
+"Yes--I see." Amanda's face was troubled. "That's Lyman's work." The
+injustice of the thing hurt her. "Of course, I can get another school,
+but I like Crow Hill, I know the children and we get along so well, and
+it's near home----"
+
+"Well," came Millie's spirited question, "surely you ain't goin' to let
+Mertzheimers do like they want? I don't believe in this foldin' hands
+and lookin' meek and leavin' people use you for a shoe mat! Here, come
+in once till I tell you somethin'," she called as Mrs. Reist, Philip
+and Uncle Amos came through the yard. She repeated her account of the
+news the strangers had unwittingly imparted to her at market.
+
+"The skunk," said Philip.
+
+"Skunk?" repeated Uncle Amos. "I wouldn't insult the little black and
+white furry fellow like that! A skunk'll trot off and mind his own
+business if you leave him alone, and, anyhow, he'll put up his tail for
+a danger signal so you know what's comin' if you hang around."
+
+"Well, then," said the boy, "call him a snake, a rattlesnake."
+
+"And that's not quite hittin' the mark, either. A rattlesnake rattles
+before he strikes. I say mean people are more like the copperhead, that
+hides in the grass and leaves that are like its own color, and when you
+ain't expectin' it and without any warnin', he'll up and strike you
+with his poison fangs. What are you goin' to do about it, Amanda?"
+
+"Do? I'll do nothing. What can I do?"
+
+"You might go round and see the directors and ask them to vote for
+you," suggested Millie. "I wouldn't let them people get the best of me
+--just for spite now I wouldn't!"
+
+"I won't ask for one vote!" Amanda was decided in that. "The men on the
+board have had a chance to see how the school is run, and if it doesn't
+please them, or if they are going to have one man rule them and tell
+them how to vote--let them go! I'll hand in my application, that's all
+I'll do."
+
+"What for need you be so stiff-headed?" asked Millie sadly. "It'll
+spite us all if they put you out and you go off somewheres to teach.
+Ach, abody wonders sometimes why some people got to be so mean in this
+world."
+
+"It is always that way," said Mrs. Reist gently. "There are weeds
+everywhere, even in this Garden Spot. Why, I found a stalk of deadly
+nightshade in my rose-bed last summer."
+
+"Wheat and chaff, I guess," was Uncle Amos's comment.
+
+"But, Amanda," asked Millie, "ain't there some person over the
+directors, boss over them?"
+
+"Just the County Superintendent, and he's not really boss over them. He
+comes round to the schools every year and the directors come with him
+and, of course, if he blames a teacher they hear it, and if he praises
+one they hear it."
+
+"Um--so--I see," said Millie.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT'S VISIT
+
+
+The annual visit of the County Superintendent of Schools always
+carries with it some degree of anxiety for the teacher. Sometimes the
+visit comes unexpectedly, but generally the news is sent round in some
+manner, and last minute polish and coachings are given for the hour of
+trial. The teacher, naturally eager to make a creditable showing, never
+knows what vagaries of stupidity will seize her brightest pupils and
+cause them to stand helpless and stranded as she questions them in the
+presence of the distinguished visitor and critic.
+
+The Superintendent came to the Crow Hill school on a blustery March day
+of the sort that blows off hats and tries the tempers of the sweetest
+natured people. Amanda thought she never before lived through hours so
+long as those in which she waited for the visitors. But at length came
+the children's subdued, excited announcement, "Here they come!" as the
+grind of wheels sounded outside the windows. A few minutes later the
+hour was come--the County Superintendent and the directors, Mr.
+Mertzheimer in the lead, stepped into the little room, shook hands with
+the teacher, then seated themselves and waited for Amanda to go on with
+her regular lessons and prove her efficiency.
+
+Amanda, stirred by the underhand workings of Mr. Mertzheimer, was on
+her mettle. She'd just show that man she could teach! Two years'
+experience in handling rural school classes came to her support. With
+precision, yet unhurried, she conducted classes in geography, grammar,
+reading, arithmetic, some in beginners' grades and others in the
+advanced classes.
+
+She saved her trump card for the last, her nature class, in which the
+children told from the colored pictures that formed a frieze above the
+blackboard, the names of fifty native birds and gave a short sketch of
+their habits, song or peculiarities.
+
+After that the pupils sang for the visitors. During that time the eyes
+of the Superintendent traveled about the room, from the pressed and
+mounted leaves and flowers on the walls to the corn-husk and grass
+baskets on a table in the rear of the room.
+
+When the children's part was ended came the time they loved best, that
+portion of the visit looked forward to each year, the address of the
+County Superintendent. He was a tall man, keen-eyed and kindly, and as
+he stood before the little school the eyes of every child were upon
+him--he'd be sure to say something funny before he sat down--he always
+did!
+
+"Well, boys and girls, here we are again! And, as the old Pennsylvania
+Dutch preacher said, 'I'm glad that I can say that I'm glad that I'm
+here.' "He rattled off the words in rapid Pennsylvania Dutch, at which
+the children laughed and some whispered, "Why, he can talk the Dutch,
+too!" Then they listened in rapt attention as the speaker went on:
+
+"Last year my hour in this schoolroom was one of the high-lights of my
+visits to the rural schools of the county. So I expected big things
+from you this year, and it gives me great pleasure to tell you that I
+am not disappointed. I might go farther and tell you the truth--I am
+more than pleased with the showing of this school. I listened
+attentively while all the classes were in session, and your answers
+showed intelligent thinking and reasoning. You had a surprise for me in
+that bird class. I like that! It's a great idea to learn from colored
+pictures the names of our birds, for by so doing you will be able to
+identify them readily when you meet them in the fields and woods. No
+lover of birds need fear that one of you will rob a bird's nest or use
+a sling-shot on a feathered neighbor. You show by your stories about
+the birds that a proper regard and appreciation for them has been
+fostered in you by your teacher. You all know that it has long been
+acknowledged that 'An honest confession is good for the soul,' so I'm
+going to be frank and tell you that as Miss Reist pointed to the birds
+there were thirty out of the fifty that I did not know. I have learned
+something of great value with you here to-day, and I promise you that
+I'm going to buy a book and study about them so that when I come to see
+you next year I'll know every one of your pictures. You make me feel
+ashamed of my meagre knowledge of our feathered neighbors on whom,
+indirectly, our very existence depends.
+
+"I made mention last year about your fine work in basketry, and am glad
+to do so again. I like your teacher's idea of utilizing native
+material, corn husk, dried grasses and reeds, all from our own Garden
+Spot, and a few colored strands of raffia from Madagascar, and forming
+them into baskets. This faculty of using apparently useless material
+and fashioning from it a useful and beautiful article is one of our
+Pennsylvania Dutch heritages and one we should cherish and develop.
+
+"I understand there has been some adverse criticism among a few of the
+less liberal patrons of the community in regard to the basket work and
+nature study Miss Reist is teaching. Oh, I suppose we must expect that!
+Progress is always hampered by sluggish stupidity and contrariness. We
+who can see into the future and read the demands of the times must
+surely note that the children must be taught more than the knowledge
+contained between the covers of our school books. The teacher who can
+instil into the hearts of her pupils a feeling of kinship with the wild
+creatures of the fields and woods, who can waken in the children an
+appreciation of the beauty and symmetry of the flowers, even the weeds,
+and at the same time not fail in her duty as a teacher of arithmetic,
+history, and so forth, is a real teacher who has the proper conception
+of her high calling and is conscientiously striving to carry that
+conception into action.
+
+"Directors, let me make this public statement to you, that in Miss
+Reist you have a teacher well worthy of your heartiest cooperation. The
+danger with us who have been out of school these thirty years or more
+is that we expect to see the antiquated methods of our own school days
+in operation to-day. We would have the schools stand still while the
+whole world moves.
+
+"I feel it is only just to commend a teacher's work when it deserves
+commendation, as I consider it my duty to point out the flaws and name
+any causes for regret I may discover in her teaching. In this school I
+have found one big cause for regret---"
+
+The hard eyes of Mr. Mertzheimer flashed. All through the glowing
+praise of the County Superintendent the schemer had sat with head cast
+down and face flushed in mortification and anger. Now his head was
+erect. Good! That praise was just a bluff! That red-head would get a
+good hard knock now! Good enough for her! Now she'd wish she had not
+turned down the son of the leading director of Crow Hill school!
+Perhaps now she'd be glad to accept the attentions of Lyman. Marriage
+would be a welcome solution to her troubles when she lost her position
+in the school so near home. The Superintendent was not unmindful of
+that "flea in his ear," after all.
+
+"I have found one cause for regret," the speaker repeated slowly, "one
+big cause."
+
+His deep, feeling voice stopped and he faced the school while the
+hearts of pupils and teacher beat with apprehension.
+
+"And that regret is," he said very slowly so that not one word of his
+could be lost, "that I have not a dozen teachers just like Miss Reist
+to scatter around the county!"
+
+Amanda's lips trembled. The relief and happiness occasioned by the
+words of the speaker almost brought her to tears. The children,
+appreciating the compliment to their teacher, clapped hands until the
+little room resounded with deafening noise.
+
+"That's good," said the distinguished visitor, smiling, as the applause
+died down. "You stick to your teacher like that and follow her lead and
+I am sure you will develop into men and women of whom Lancaster County
+will be proud."
+
+After a few more remarks, a joke or two, he went back to his seat with
+the directors. Mr. Mertzheimer avoided meeting his eyes. The father of
+Lyman Mertzheimer, who had been so loud in his denunciation of the
+tomfoolery baskets and dried weeds, suddenly developed an intense
+interest in a tray of butterflies and milkweed.
+
+In a few minutes it was time for dismissal. One of the older girls
+played a simple march on the little organ and the scholars marched from
+the room. With happy faces they said good-bye, eager to run home and
+tell all about the visit of the County Superintendent and the things he
+said.
+
+As the visitors rose to go the County Superintendent stepped away from
+the others and went to Amanda.
+
+"You have been very kind," she told him, joy showing in her animated
+face.
+
+"Honor to whom honor is due, Miss Reist," he said, with that winning
+smile of approval so many teachers worked to win. "I have here a little
+thing I want you to read after we leave. It is a copy of a letter you
+might like to keep, though I feel certain the writer of it would feel
+embarrassed if told of your perusal of it. I want to add that I should
+have felt the same and made similar remarks to-day if I had not read
+that letter, but probably I should not have expressed my opinion quite
+so forcibly. Keep the letter. I intend to keep the original. It renews
+faith in human nature in general. It makes me feel anew how good a
+thing it is to have a friend. Good-bye, Miss Reist. I have enjoyed my
+visit to Crow Hill school, I assure you."
+
+Amanda looked at him, wondering. What under the sun could he mean? Why
+should she read a letter written to him? She smiled, shook the hand he
+offered, but was still at a loss to understand his words. The directors
+came up to say good-bye. Mr. Mertzheimer bowed very politely but
+refrained from meeting her eyes as he said, "Good-afternoon." The other
+men did not bow but they added to their good-bye, "I'm going to vote
+for you. We don't want to lose you."
+
+Amanda's heart sang as the two carriages rolled away and she was left
+alone in the schoolroom. She had seen the device of the wicked come to
+naught, she gloried in the fact that the mean and unfair was once more
+overbalanced by the just and kind. After the tribute from the County
+Superintendent and the promises from all the directors but Mr.
+Mertzheimer she felt assured that she would not be ignominiously put
+out of the school she loved. Then she thought of the letter and opened
+it hastily, her eyes traveling fast over the long sheet.
+
+"DEAR MISTER,
+
+Maybe it ain't polite to write to you when you don't know me but I got
+a favor to ask you and I don't know no other way to do it. Amanda Reist
+is teacher of the Crow Hill school and she is a good one, everybody
+says so but a few old cranks that don't know nothing. There's one of
+the directors on the school board has got a son that ain't worth a
+hollow bean and he wants Amanda should take him for her beau. She's got
+too much sense for that, our Amanda can get a better man than Lyman
+Mertzheimer I guess. But now since she won't have nothing to do with
+him he's got his pop to get her out her school. The old man has asked
+another girl to ask for the job and he's talked a lot about Amanda till
+some of the other directors side with him. He's rich and a big boss and
+things got to go his way. Most everybody says Amanda's a good teacher,
+the children run to meet her and they learn good with her. I heard her
+say you was coming to visit the school soon and that the directors
+mostly come with you and I just found out where you live and am writing
+this to tell you how it is. Perhaps if you like her school and would do
+it to tell them directors so it would help her. It sometimes helps a
+lot when a big person takes the side of the person being tramped on.
+Amanda is too high strung to ask any of the directors to stick to her.
+She says they can see what kind of work she does and if they want to
+let one man run the school board and run her out she'll go out. But she
+likes that school and it's near her home and we'd all feel bad if she
+got put out and went off somewheres far to teach. I'm just the hired
+girl at her house but I think a lot of her. I will say thanks very much
+for what you can do.
+
+And oblige, AMELIA HESS.
+
+P. S. I forgot to say Amanda don't know I have wrote this. I guess she
+wouldn't leave me send it if she did."
+
+Tears of happiness rolled down the girl's face as she ended the reading
+of the letter. "The dear thing! The loyal old body she is! So that was
+why she borrowed my dictionary and shut herself up in her room one
+whole evening! Just a hired girl she says--could any blood relative do
+a kinder deed? Oh, I don't wonder he said it renews faith in human
+nature! I guess for every Mertzheimer there's a Millie. I'll surely
+keep this letter but I won't let her know I have any idea about what
+she did. I'm so glad he gave it to me. It takes the bitter taste from
+my mouth and makes life pleasant again. Now I'll run home with the news
+of the Superintendent's visit and the nice things he said."
+
+She did run, indeed, especially when she reached the yard of her home.
+By the time the gate clicked she was near the kitchen door. Millie was
+rolling out pies, Mrs. Reist was paring apples.
+
+"Mother," the girl twined an arm about the neck of the white-capped
+woman and kissed her fervently on the cheek, "I'm so excited! Oh,
+Millie," she treated the astonished woman to the same expression of
+love.
+
+"What now?" said Millie. "Now you got that flour all over your nice
+dress. What ails you, anyhow?"
+
+"Oh, just joy. The Superintendent was here and he puffed me way up to
+the skies and the directors, all but Mr. Mertzheimer, promised to vote
+for me. I didn't ask them too, either."
+
+"I'm so glad," said Mrs. Reist.
+
+"Ach, now ain't that nice! I'm glad," said Millie, her face bright with
+joy. "So he puffed you up in front of them men? That was powerful nice
+for him to do, but just what you earned, I guess. I bet that settled
+the Mertzheimer hash once! That County man knows his business. He ain't
+goin' through the world blind. What all did he say?"
+
+"Oh, he was lovely. He liked the baskets and the classes and the
+singing and--everything! And Mr Mertzheimer looked madder than a
+setting hen when you take her off the nest. He hung his head like a
+whipped dog."
+
+"Na-ha!" exulted Millie. "That's one time that he didn't have his own
+way once! I bet he gets out of the school board if he can't run it."
+
+Her prediction came true. Mr. Mertzheimer's dignity would not tolerate
+such trampling under foot. If that red-headed teacher was going to keep
+the school he'd get out and let the whole thing go to smash! He got
+out, but to his surprise, nothing went to smash. An intelligent farmer,
+more amenable to good judgment, was elected to succeed him and the Crow
+Hill school affairs went smoothly. In due time Amanda Reist was elected
+by unanimous vote to teach for the ensuing year and the Mertzheimers,
+thwarted, nursed their wrath, and sat down to think of other avenues of
+attack.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+"MARTIN'S GIRL"
+
+
+If the securing of the coveted school, the assurance of the good will
+and support of the patrons and directors, and the love of the dear home
+folks was a combination of blessings ample enough to bring perfect
+happiness, then Amanda Reist should have been in that state during the
+long summer months of her vacation. But, after the perverseness of
+human nature, there was one thing lacking, only one--her knight, Martin
+Landis.
+
+During the long, bright summer days Amanda worked on the farm, helped
+Millie faithfully, but she was never so busily occupied with manual
+labor that she did not take time now and then to sit idly under some
+tree and dream, adding new and wonderful turrets to her golden castles
+in Spain.
+
+She remembered with a whimsical, wistful smile the pathetic Romance of
+the Swan's Nest and the musing of Little Ellie--
+
+  "I will have a lover,
+  Riding on a steed of steeds;
+  He shall love me without guile,
+  And to him I will discover
+  The swan's nest among the reeds.
+  "And the steed shall be red-roan,
+  And the lover shall be noble"--
+
+and so on, into a rhapsody of the valor of her lover, such as only a
+romantic child could picture. But, alas! As the dream comes to the
+grand climax and Little Ellie, "Her smile not yet ended," goes to see
+what more eggs were with the two in the swan's nest, she finds,
+
+  "Lo, the wild swan had deserted,
+  And a rat had gnawed the reeds!"
+
+Was it usually like that? Amanda wondered. Were reality and dreams
+never coincident? Was the romance of youth just a pretty bubble whose
+rainbow tints would soon be pierced and vanish into vapor? Castles in
+Spain--were they so ethereal that never by any chance could they--at
+least some semblance to them--be duplicated in reality?
+
+"I'll hold on to my castles in Spain!" she cried to her heart. "I'll
+keep on hoping, I won't let go," she said, as though, like Jacob of
+old, she were wrestling for a blessing.
+
+Many afternoons she brought her sewing to the front porch and sat there
+as Martin passed by on his way home from the day's work at Lancaster.
+His cordial, "Hello" was friendly enough but it afforded scant joy to
+the girl who knew that all his leisure hours were spent with the
+attractive Isabel Souders.
+
+Martin was friendly enough, but that was handing her a stone when she
+wanted bread.
+
+One June morning she was working in the yard as he went by on his way
+to the bank. A great bunch of his mother's pink spice roses was in his
+arm. He was earlier, too, than usual. Probably he was taking the
+flowers to Isabel.
+
+"Hello," he called to the girl. "You're almost a stranger, Amanda."
+
+He was not close enough to see the tremble of her lips as she called
+back, "Not quite, I hope."
+
+"Well, Mother said this morning that she has not seen you for several
+weeks. You used to come down to play with the babies but now your
+visits are few and far between. Mother said she misses you, Amanda. Why
+don't you run down to see her when you have time?"
+
+"All right, Martin, I will. It is some time since I've had a good visit
+with your mother. I'll be down soon."
+
+"Do, she'll be glad," he said and went down the road to the trolley.
+
+"Almost a stranger," mused the girl after he was gone. Then she thought
+of the old maid who had answered a query thus, "Why ain't I married?
+Goodness knows, it ain't my fault!" Amanda's saving sense of humor came
+to her rescue and banished the tears.
+
+"Guess I'll run over to see Mrs. Landis a while this afternoon. It is a
+long time since I've been there. I do enjoy being with her. She's such
+a cheerful person. The work and noise of nine children doesn't bother
+her a bit. I don't believe she knows what nerves are."
+
+That afternoon Amanda walked down the country road, past the Crow Hill
+schoolhouse, to the Landis farm. As she came to the barn-yard she heard
+Emma, the youngest Landis child, crying and an older boy chiding, "Ah,
+you big baby! Crying about a pinched finger! Can't you act like a
+soldier?"
+
+"But girls--don't be soldiers," said the hurt child, sobbing in
+childish pain.
+
+Amanda appeared on the scene and went to the grassy slope of the big
+bank barn. There she drew the little girl to her and began to comfort
+her. "Here, let Amanda kiss the finger."
+
+"It hurts, it hurts awful, Manda," sniffed the child.
+
+"I know it hurts. A pinched finger hurts a whole lot. You just cry a
+while and by that time it will stop hurting." She began to croon to the
+child the words of an old rhyme she had picked up somewhere long ago:
+
+  "Hurt your finger, little lassie?
+  Just you cry a while!
+  For some day your heart will hurt
+  And then you'll have to smile.
+
+  Time enough to be a stoic
+  In the coming years;
+  Blessed are the days when pain
+  Is washed away by tears."
+
+By the time the verse was ended the child's attention had been diverted
+from the finger to the song and the smiles came back to the little
+face.
+
+"Now," said Amanda, "we'll bathe it in the water at the trough and it
+will be entirely well."
+
+"And it won't turn into a pig's foot?"
+
+"Mercy, no!"
+
+"Charlie said it would if I didn't stop cryin'."
+
+"But you stopped crying, you know, before it could do that. Charlie'll
+pump water and we'll wash all nice and clean and go in to Mother."
+
+Water from the watering trough in the barn-yard soon effaced the traces
+of tears and a happy trio entered the big yard near the house. An older
+boy and Katie Landis came running to meet them.
+
+"Oh, Amanda," said Katie, "did you come once! Just at a good time, too!
+We're gettin' company for supper and Mom was wishin' you'd come so she
+could ask you about settin' the table. We're goin' to eat in the room
+to-night,'stead of the kitchen like we do other times. And we're goin'
+to have all the good dishes and things out and a bouquet in the middle
+of the table when we eat! Ain't that grand? But Pop, he told Mom this
+morning that if it's as hot to-night as it was this dinner he won't
+wear no coat to eat, not even if the Queen of Sheba comes to our place
+for a meal! But I guess he only said that for fun, because, ain't, the
+Queen of Sheba was the one in the Bible that came to visit Solomon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, she ain't comin' to us, anyhow. It's that Isabel from Lancaster,
+Martin's girl, that's comin'."
+
+"Oh!" Amanda halted on her way across the lawn. "What time is she
+coming?" she asked in panicky way, as though she would flee before the
+visitor arrived.
+
+"Ach, not for long yet! We don't eat till after five. Martin brings her
+on the trolley with him when he comes home from the bank."
+
+"Then I'll go in to see your mother a while." A great uneasiness
+clutched at the girl's heart. Why had she come on that day?
+
+But Mrs. Landis was glad to see her. "Well, Amanda," she called through
+the kitchen screen, "you're just the person I said I wished would come.
+Come right in.
+
+"Come in the room a while where it's cool," she invited as Amanda and
+several of the children entered the kitchen. "I'm hot through and
+through! I just got a short cake mixed and in the stove. Now I got
+nothin' special to do till it's done. I make the old kind yet, the
+biscuit dough. Does your mom, too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ach, it's better, too, than this sweet kind some people make. I split
+it and put a lot of strawberries on it and we eat it with cream."
+
+"Um, Mom," said little Charlie, "you make my mouth water still when you
+talk about good things like that. I wish it was supper-time a'ready."
+
+"And you lookin' like that!" laughed the mother, pointing to his bare
+brown legs and feet and his suit that bore evidence of accidental
+meetings with grass and ground.
+
+"Did they tell you, Amanda," she went on placidly, as she rocked and
+fanned herself with a huge palm-leaf fan, "that we're gettin' company
+for supper?"
+
+"Yes--Isabel."
+
+"Yes. Martin, he goes in to see her at Lancaster real often and he's
+all the time talkin' about her and wantin' we should meet her. She has
+him to supper--ach, they call it dinner--but it's what they eat in the
+evening. I just said to his pop we'll ask her out here to see us once
+and find out what for girl she is. From what Martin says she's a little
+tony and got money and lots of fine things. You know Martin is the kind
+can suit himself to most any kind of people. He can make after every
+place he goes, even if they do put on style. So mebbe she thinks
+Martin's from tony people, too. But when she comes here she can see
+that we're just plain country people. I don't put no airs on, but I did
+say I'd like to have things nice so that she can't laugh at us, for I'd
+pity Martin if she did that. Mebbe you know how to set the things on
+the table a little more like they do now. It's so long since I ate any
+place tony. I said we'd eat in the room, too, and not in the kitchen.
+We always eat in the kitchen for it's big and handy and nice and cool
+with all the doors and windows open. But I'll carry things in the room
+to-night. It will please Martin if we have things nice for his girl."
+
+"Um-huh, Martin's got a girl!" sang Charlie gleefully.
+
+"Yes," spoke up Johnny, a little older and wiser than Charlie. "I know
+he's got a girl. He's got a big book in his room and I seen him once
+look in it and pick up something out of it and look at it like it was
+something worth a whole lot. I sneaked in after he went off and what
+d'you think it was? Nothing at all but one of them pink lady-slippers
+we find in the woods near the schoolhouse! He pressed it in that book
+and acted like it was something precious, so I guess his girl give it
+to him."
+
+Amanda remembered the pink lady-slipper. She had seen Isabel give it to
+Martin that spring day when the city girl's glowing face had smiled
+over the pink azaleas, straight into the eyes of the country boy.
+
+"Charlie," chided Mrs. Landis, "don't you be pokin' round in Martin's
+room. And don't you tell him what you saw. He'd be awful put out. He
+don't like to be teased. Ach, my," she shook her head and smiled to
+Amanda, "with so many children it makes sometimes when they all get
+talkin' and cuttin' up or scrappin'."
+
+"But it's a lively, merry place. I always like to come here."
+
+"Do you, now? Well, I like to have you. I often say to Martin that
+you're like a streak of sunshine comin' on a winter day, always so
+happy and full of fun, it does abody good to have you around. Ach"--in
+answer to a whisper from the six-year-old baby, "yes, well, go take a
+few cookies. Only put the lid on the crock tight again so the cookies
+will keep fresh. Now I guess I better look after my short cake once.
+Mister likes everything baked brown. Then I guess we'll set the table
+if you don't mind tellin' me a little how."
+
+"I'll be glad to."
+
+While Mrs. Landis went up-stairs to get her very best table-cloth
+Amanda looked about the room with its plain country furnishings, its
+hominess and yet utter lack of real artistry in decoration. Her heart
+rebelled. What business had a girl like Isabel Souders to enter a
+family like the Landis's? She'd like to bet that the city girl would
+disdain the dining-room with its haircloth sofa along one wall and its
+organ in one corner, its quaint, silk-draped mantel where two vases of
+Pampas grass hobnobbed with an antique pink and white teapot and two
+pewter plates; its lack of buffet or fashionable china closet, its old,
+low-backed, cane-seated walnut chairs round a table, long of necessity
+to hold plates for so large a family.
+
+"Here it is, the finest one I got. That's one I got yet when I went
+housekeepin'. I don't use it often, it's a little long for the kitchen
+table." Mrs. Landis proudly exhibited her old linen table-cloth. "Now
+then, take hold."
+
+In a few minutes the cloth was spread upon the table and the best
+dishes brought from a closet built into the kitchen wall.
+
+"How many plates?" asked Amanda.
+
+"Why, let's count once. Eleven of us and Isabel makes twelve and--won't
+you stay, too, Amanda?"
+
+"Oh, no! I'd make thirteen," she said, laughing.
+
+"Ach, I don't believe in that unlucky business. You can just as well
+stay and have a good time with us. You know Isabel."
+
+"Yes, I know her. But really, I can't stay. I must get home early. Some
+other time I'll stay."
+
+"All right, then, but I'd like it if you could be here."
+
+"I'll put twelve plates on the table."
+
+"What I don't know about is the napkins, Amanda. We used to roll them
+up and put them in the tumblers and then some people folded them in
+triangles and laid them on the plates, but I don't know if that's right
+now. Mine are just folded square."
+
+"That's right. I'll place them to the side, so. And the forks go here
+and the knives and spoons to this side."
+
+"Well, don't it beat all? They lay the spoons on the table now? What
+for is the spoon-holder?"
+
+"Gone out of style."
+
+"Well, that's funny. I guess when our Mary gets a little older once,
+she'll want to fix things up, too. I don't care if she does, so long as
+she don't want to do dumb things and put on a lot of airs that ain't
+fittin' to plain people like us. But it'll be a big wonder to me if one
+of the children won't say something about the spoons bein' on the
+table-cloth. That's new to them. Then I need three glass dishes for
+jelly so none will have to reach so far for it. And a big platter for
+fried ham, a pitcher for the gravy, a dish for smashed potatoes, one
+for sweet potatoes, a glass one for cabbage slaw and I guess I ought to
+put desserts out for the slaw, Amanda. I hate when gravy and everything
+gets mixed on the plate. Then I'm going to have some new peas and sour
+red beets and the short cake. I guess that's enough."
+
+"It sounds like real Lancaster County food," said the girl. "Your
+company should enjoy her supper."
+
+"Ach, I guess she will. Now I must call in some of the children and get
+them started dressin' once."
+
+She stood at the screen door of the kitchen and rang a small hand bell.
+Its tintinnabulation sounded through the yard and reached the ears of
+the children who were playing there. The three boys next in age to
+Martin were helping their father in the fields, but the other children
+came running at the sound of the bell.
+
+"Time to get dressed," announced Mrs. Landis. "You all stay round here
+now so I can call you easy as one gets done washin'. Johnny, you take
+Charlie and the two of you get washed and put on the clothes I laid on
+your bed. Then you stay on the porch so you don't get dirty again till
+supper and the company comes. Be sure to wash your feet and legs right
+before you put on your stockings."
+
+"Aw, stockings!" growled Charlie. "Why can't we stay barefooty?"
+
+"For company?"
+
+"Ach," he said sulkily as he walked to the stairs, "I don't like the
+kind of company you got to put stockings on for! Not on week-days,
+anyhow!"
+
+His mother laughed. "Emma," she addressed one of the girls, "when the
+boys come back you and Mary and Katie must get washed and dressed for
+the company. Mary, you dare wear your blue hair-ribbons today and the
+girls can put their pink ones on and their white dresses."
+
+"Oh," the little girls cried happily. Dressing up for company held more
+pleasure for them than it did for the boys.
+
+"I laugh still," said Mrs. Landis, "when people say what a lot of work
+so many children make. In many ways, like sewing and cookin' for them
+they do, but in other ways they are a big help to me and to each other.
+If I had just one now I'd have to dress it, but with so many they help
+the littler ones and all I got to do is tell them what to do. It don't
+hurt them to work a little. Mary is big enough now to put a big apron
+on and help me with gettin' meals ready. And the boys are good about
+helpin' me, too. Why, Martin, now, he used to help me like a girl when
+the babies were little and I had a lot to do. Mister said the other day
+we dare be glad our boys ain't give us no trouble so far. But this girl
+of Martin's, now, she kinda worries me. I said to Mister if only he'd
+pick out a girl like you."
+
+To her surprise the face of the girl blanched. Mrs. Landis thought in
+dismay, "Now what for dumb block am I, not to guess that mebbe Amanda
+likes our Martin! Ach, my! but it spites me that he's gone on that city
+girl! Well," she went on, talking in an effort at reparation and in
+seeming ignorance of the secret upon which she had stumbled, "mebbe he
+ain't goin' to marry her after all. These boys sometimes run after such
+bright, merry butterfly girls and then they get tired of them and pick
+out a nice sensible one to marry. Abody must just keep on hopin' that
+everything will turn out right. Anyhow, I don't let myself worry much
+about it."
+
+"Do you ever worry, Mrs. Landis? I can't remember ever seeing you
+worried and borrowing trouble."
+
+"No, what's the use? I found out long ago that worry don't get you
+nowhere except in hot water, so what's the use of it?"
+
+"That's a good way to look at things if you can do it," the girl
+agreed. "I think I'll go home now. You don't need me. You'll get along
+nicely, I'm sure."
+
+"Ach, yes, I guess so. But now you must come soon again, Amanda. This
+company business kinda spoiled your visit to-day."
+
+Amanda was in the rear of the house and did not see the vision of
+loveliness which passed the Reist farmhouse about five o'clock that
+afternoon. One of Martin's brothers met the two at the trolley and
+drove them to the Landis farm. Isabel Souders was that day, indeed,
+attractive. She wore a corn-colored organdie dress and leghorn hat, her
+natural beauty was enhanced by a becoming coiffure, her eyes danced,
+her lips curved in their most bewitching bow.
+
+The visitor was effusive in her meeting with Martin's mother. "Dear
+Mrs. Landis," she gushed, "it is so lovely of you to have me here! Last
+summer while I boarded at Reists' I was so sorry not to meet you!
+Of course I met Martin and some of the younger children but the mother
+is always the most adorable one of the family! Oh, come here, dear, you
+darling," she cooed to little Emma, who had tiptoed into the room. But
+Emma held to her mother's apron and refused to move.
+
+"Ach, Emma," Katie, a little older, chided her. "You'll run a mile to
+Amanda Reist if you see her. Don't act so simple! Talk to the lady;
+she's our company."
+
+"Ach, she's bashful all of a sudden," said Mrs. Landis, smiling. "Now,
+Miss Souders, you take your hat off and just make yourself at home
+while I finish gettin' the supper ready. You dare look through them
+albums in the front room or set on the front porch. Just make yourself
+at home now."
+
+"Thank you, how lovely!" came the sweet reply.
+
+A little while later when Martin left her and went to his room to
+prepare for the evening meal the children, too, scurried away one by
+one and left Isabel alone. She took swift inventory of the furnishings
+of the front room.
+
+"Dear," she thought, "what atrocious taste! How can Martin live here?
+How can he belong to a family like this?"
+
+But later she was all smiles again as Martin joined her and Mrs. Landis
+brought her husband into the room to meet the guest. Mr. Landis had, in
+spite of protests and murmurings, been persuaded to hearken to the
+advice of his wife and wear a coat. Likewise the older boys had
+followed Martin's example and donned the hot woolen articles of dress
+they considered superfluous in the house during the summer days.
+
+Isabel chattered gaily to the men of the Landis household until Mrs.
+Landis stood in the doorway and announced, "Come now, folks, supper's
+done."
+
+After the twelve were seated about the big table, Mr. Landis said grace
+and then Mrs. Landis rose to pour the coffee, several of the boys
+started to pass the platters and dishes around the table and the
+evening meal on the farm was in full swing.
+
+"Oh," piped out little Charlie as he lifted his plate for a slice of
+ham, "somebody's went and threw all the spoons on the table-cloth!
+Here's two by my plate. And Emma's got some by her place, too!"
+
+"Sh!" warned Mary, but Mrs. Landis laughed heartily. "Easy seeing," she
+confessed, "that we ain't used to puttin' on style. Charlie, that's the
+latest way of puttin' spoons on. Amanda Reist did it for me."
+
+"Amanda Reist," said Mr. Landis. "Why didn't she stay for supper if she
+was here when you set the table?"
+
+"I asked her to but she couldn't."
+
+"Oh," the guest said, "I think Amanda is the sweetest girl. I just love
+her!"
+
+"Me, too," added Mary. "She's my teacher."
+
+"Mine too," said Katie. "I like her."
+
+The Landis children were taught politeness according to the standards
+of their parents, but they had never been told that they should be seen
+and not heard. Meal-time at the Landis farm was not a quiet time. The
+children were encouraged to repeat any interesting happening of the day
+and there was much laughter and genial conversation and frank
+expressions about the taste of the food.
+
+"Um, ain't that short cake good!" said Charlie, smacking his lips.
+
+"Delicious, lovely!" agreed the guest.
+
+"Here, have another piece," urged Mrs. Landis. "I always make enough
+for two times around."
+
+"Mom takes care of us, all right," testified Mr. Landis.
+
+"Lovely, I'm sure," Isabel said with a bright smile.
+
+And so the dinner hour sped and at length all rose and Martin, tagged
+by two of the younger boys, showed Isabel the garden and yard, while
+Mrs. Landis with the aid of Mary and one of the boys cleared off and
+washed the dishes. Then the entire family gathered on the big porch and
+the time passed so quickly in the soft June night that the guest
+declared it had seemed like a mere minute.
+
+"This is the most lovely, adorable family," she told them. "I've had a
+wonderful time. How I hate to go back to the noisy city! How I envy you
+this lovely porch on such nights!"
+
+Later, when Martin returned from seeing the visitor back to Lancaster,
+his parents were sitting alone on the porch.
+
+"Well, Mother, Dad, what do you think of her?" he asked in his boyish
+eagerness to have their opinion of the girl he thought he was beginning
+to care for. "Isn't she nice?"
+
+"Seems like a very nice girl," said his mother with measured
+enthusiasm.
+
+"Oh, Mother," was the boy's impatient answer, "of course you wouldn't
+think any girl was good enough for your boy! I can see that. If an
+angel from heaven came down after me you'd find flaws in her."
+
+"Easy, Mart," cautioned the father. "Better put on the brakes a bit.
+Your mom and I think about the same, I guess, that the girl's a likely
+enough lady and she surely is easy to look at, but she ain't what we'd
+pick out for you if we had the say. It's like some of these here fancy
+ridin' horses people buy. They're all right for ridin' but no good for
+hitchin' to a plow. You don't just want a wife that you can play around
+with and dress pretty and amuse yourself with. You need a wife that'll
+work with you and be a partner and not fail you when trouble comes.
+Think that over, Mart."
+
+"Gosh, you talk as though I had asked her to marry me. We are just good
+friends. I enjoy visiting her and hearing her play."
+
+"Yes, Martin, I know, but life ain't all piano playin' after you get
+married, is it, Mom?"
+
+Mrs. Landis laughed. "No, it's often other kinds of music! But I'm not
+sorry I'm married." "Me neither," confirmed her husband. "And that,
+Mart, is what you want to watch for when you pick a wife. Pick one so
+that after you been livin' together thirty years you can both say
+you're not sorry you married. That's the test!"
+
+"Oh, some test!" the boy said drearily. "I--I guess you're right, both
+of you. I guess it isn't a thing to rush into. But you don't know
+Isabel. She's really a lovely, sweet girl."
+
+"Of course she is," said his mother. "You just hold on to her and go
+see her as often as you like. Perhaps when you've been at the bank a
+while longer and can afford to get married you'll find she's the very
+one you want. Any one you pick we'll like."
+
+"Yes, of course, yes," said Mr. Landis. Wise parents! They knew that
+direct opposition to the choice of the son would frustrate their hopes
+for him. Let him go on seeing the butterfly and perhaps the sooner he'd
+outgrow her charms, they thought.
+
+But later, as Mr. Landis unlaced his shoes and his wife took off her
+white Mennonite cap and combed her hair for the night, that mild man
+sputtered and stormed. All the gentle acquiescence was fallen from him.
+"That empty-headed doll has got our Mart just wrapped round her finger!
+All she can say is 'Delicious, lovely, darling!'"
+
+Mrs. Landis laughed at his imitation of the affected Isabel.
+
+"Good guns, Mom, if any of our boys tie up with a doll like that it'll
+break our hearts. Why couldn't Mart pick a sensible girl that can cook
+and ain't too tony nor lazy to do it? A girl like Amanda Reist, now,
+would be more suited to him. Poor Mart, he's bamboozled if he gets this
+one! But if we told him that he'd be so mad he'd run to-morrow and
+marry her. We got to be a little careful, I guess."
+
+"Ach, yes, he'll get over it. He's a whole lot like you and I don't
+believe he'd marry a girl like that."
+
+"Well, let's hope he shows as good taste when he picks a wife as I did,
+ain't, Mom?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+AUNT REBECCA'S WILL
+
+
+That summer Aunt Rebecca became ill. Millie volunteered to take care of
+her.
+
+"She ain't got no child to do for her," said the hired girl, "and abody
+feels forlorn when you're sick. I'll go tend her if you want."
+
+"Oh, Millie, I'd be so glad if you'd go! Strangers might be ugly to
+her, for she's a little hard to get along with. And I can't do it to
+take care of her."
+
+"You--well, I guess you ain't strong enough to do work like that. If
+she gets real sick she'll have to be lifted around and she ain't too
+light, neither. If you and Amanda can shift here I'll just pack my
+telescope and go right over to Landisville."
+
+So Millie packed and strapped her old gray telescope and went to wait
+on the sick woman.
+
+She found Aunt Rebecca in bed, very ill, with a kind neighbor
+ministering to her.
+
+"My goodness, Millie," she greeted the newcomer, "I never was so glad
+to see anybody like I am you! You pay this lady for her trouble. My
+money is in the wash-stand drawer. Lock the drawer open and get it out"
+
+After the neighbor had been paid and departed Millie and the sick woman
+were left alone. "Millie," said Aunt Rebecca, "you stay with me till I
+go. Ach, you needn't tell me I'll get well. I know I'm done for. I
+don't want a lot o' strangers pokin' round in my things and takin' care
+of me. I'm crabbit and they don't have no patience."
+
+"Ach, you'll be around again in no time," said Millie cheerfully.
+"Don't you worry. I'll run everything just like it ought to be. I'll
+tend you so good you'll be up and about before you know it."
+
+"I'm not so easy fooled. I won't get out of this room till I'm carried
+out, I know. My goodness, abody thinks back over a lot o' things when
+you get right sick once! I made a will, Millie, and a pretty good one,"
+the sick woman laughed as if in enjoyment of a pleasant secret. Her
+nurse attributed the laughter to delirium. But Aunt Rebecca went on,
+astonishing the other woman more and deepening the conviction that the
+strange talk was due to flightiness.
+
+"Yes, I made a will! Some people'll say I was crazy, but you tell them
+for me I'm as sane as any one. My goodness, can't abody do what abody
+wants with your own money? Didn't I slave and scratch and skimp like
+everything all my life! And you bet I'm goin' to give that there money
+just where I want!"
+
+"Ach, people always fuss about wills. It gives them something to talk
+about," said Millie, thinking argument useless.
+
+"Yes, it won't worry me. I won't hear it. I have it all fixed where and
+how I want to be buried, and all about the funeral. I want to have a
+nice funeral, eat in the meeting-house, and have enough to eat, too. I
+was to a funeral once and everything got all before all the people had
+eaten. I was close livin', but I ain't goin' to be close dead."
+
+"Now you go to sleep," ordered Millie. "You can tell me the rest some
+other time."
+
+That evening as Millie sat on a low rocker by the bedside, the dim
+flare of an oil lamp flickering on the faces of the two women, Aunt
+Rebecca told more of the things she was so eager to detail while
+strength lasted.
+
+"Jonas always thought that if I lived longest half of what I have
+should go back to the Miller people, his side of the family. But I tell
+you, Millie, none of them ever come to see me except one or two who
+come just for the money. They was wishin' long a'ready I'd die and
+they'd get it. But Jonas didn't put that in the will. He left me
+everything and he did say once I could do with it what I want. So I
+made a will and I'm givin' them Millers five thousand dollars in all
+and the rest--well, you'll find out what I done with the rest after I'm
+gone. I never had much good out my money and I'm havin' a lot of
+pleasure lyin' here and thinkin' what some people will do with what I
+leave them in my will. I had a lot of good that way a'ready since I'm
+sick. People will have something to talk about once when I die."
+
+And so the sick woman rambled on, while Millie thought the fever caused
+the strange words and paid little attention to their import. But,
+several weeks later, when the querulous old woman closed her eyes in
+her long, last sleep, Millie, who had nursed her so faithfully,
+remembered each detail of the funeral as Aunt Rebecca had told her and
+saw to it that every one was carried out.
+
+According to her wishes, Aunt Rebecca was robed in white for burial.
+The cashmere dress was fashioned, of course, after the garb she had
+worn so many years, and was complete with apron, pointed cape, all in
+white. Her hair was parted and folded under a white cap as it had been
+in her lifetime. She looked peaceful and happy as she lay in the parlor
+of her little home in Landisville. A smile seemed to have fixed itself
+about her lips as though the pleasant thoughts her will had occasioned
+lingered with her to the very last.
+
+She had stipulated that short services be held at the house, then the
+body taken to the church and a public service held and after interment
+in the old Mennonite graveyard at Landisville, a public dinner to be
+served in the basement of the meeting-house, as is frequently the
+custom in that community.
+
+The service of the burial of the dead is considered by the plain sects
+as a sacred obligation to attend whenever possible. Relatives, friends,
+and members of the deceased's religious sect, drive many miles to pay
+their last respects to departed ones. The innate hospitality of the
+Pennsylvania Dutch calls for the serving of a light lunch after the
+funeral. Relatives, friends, who have come from a distance or live
+close by, and all others who wish to partake of it, are welcomed.
+Therefore most meeting-houses of the plain sects have their basements
+fitted with long tables and benches, a generous supply of china and
+cutlery, a stove big enough for making many quarts of coffee. And after
+the burial willing hands prepare the food and many take advantage of
+the proffered hospitality and file to the long tables, where bread,
+cheese, cold meat, coffee and sometimes beets and pie, await them. This
+was an important portion of what Aunt Rebecca called a "nice funeral,"
+and it was given to her.
+
+Later in the day, while the nearest relatives were still together in
+the little house at Landisville, the lawyer arrived and read the will.
+
+The Millers, who were so eager for their legacies, were impatient with
+all the legal phrasing, "Being of sound mind" and so forth. They sat up
+more attentively when the lawyer read, "do hereby bequeath."
+
+First came the wish that all real estate be sold, that personal
+property be given to her sister, the sum of five hundred dollars be
+given to the Mennonite Church at Landisville for the upkeep of the
+burial ground. Then the announcement of the sum of five thousand
+dollars to be equally divided among the heirs of Jonas Miller,
+deceased, the sum of five thousand dollars to her brother Amos Rohrer,
+a like amount to her sister, Mrs. Reist, the sum of ten thousand
+dollars to Martin Landis, husband of Elizabeth Anders, and the
+remainder, if any, to be divided equally between said brother Amos and
+sister Mary.
+
+"Martin Landis!" exploded one of the Miller women, "who under the sun
+is he? To get ten thousand dollars of Rebecca's money!"
+
+"I'll tell you," spoke up Uncle Amos, "he's an old beau of hers."
+
+"Well, who ever heard of such a thing! And here we are, her own blood,
+you might say, close relations of poor Jonas, and we get only five
+thousand to be divided into about twenty shares! It's an outrage! Such
+a will ought to be broken!"
+
+"I guess not," came Uncle Amos's firm reply. "It was all Rebecca's
+money and hers to do with what suited her. She's made me think a whole
+lot more of her by this here will. I'm glad to know she didn't forget
+her old beau. She was a little prickly on the outside sometimes, but I
+guess her heart was soft after all. It's all right, it's all right,
+that will is! It ain't for us to fuss about. She could have give the
+whole lot of it to some cat home or spent it while she lived. It was
+_hers_! If that's all, lawyer, I guess we'll go. Mary and I are
+satisfied and the rest got to be. I bet Rebecca got a lot o' good
+thinkin' how Martin Landis would get the surprise of his life when she
+was in her grave."
+
+In a short time the news spread over the rural community that Rebecca
+Miller willed Martin Landis ten thousand dollars! Some said facetiously
+that it might be a posthumous thank-offering for what she missed when
+she refused to marry him. Others, keen for romance, repeated a
+sentimental story about a broken heart and a lifelong sorrow because of
+her foolish inability to see what was best for her and how at the close
+of her life she conceived the beautiful thought of leaving him the
+money so that he might know she had never forgotten him and so that he
+might remember his old sweetheart. But in whatever form the incident
+was presented it never failed to evoke interest. "Ten thousand dollars
+from an old girl! What luck!" exclaimed many.
+
+If persons not directly concerned in the ten thousand dollar legacy
+were surprised what word can adequately describe the emotion of Martin
+Landis when Amanda's verbal report of it was duly confirmed by a legal
+notice from the lawyer!
+
+"Good guns, Mom!" the man said in astonishment. "I can't make it out! I
+can't get head nor tail out the thing. What ailed Becky, anyhow? To do
+a thing like that! I feel kinda mean takin' so much money. It ought to
+go to Amos and Mary. They got five thousand apiece and somebody said
+the farms will bring more than Becky thought and by the time they are
+sold and everything divided Amos and Mary will get about eleven
+thousand each. It's right for them to get it, but it don't seem right
+for me to have it."
+
+But Millie soon paid a visit to the Landis home and repeated many of
+the things Aunt Rebecca had told her those last evenings by the light
+of the little oil lamp. "She said, Mr. Landis, that one day she was
+lookin' at the big Bible and come across an old valentine you sent her
+when you and she was young. It said on it, 'If I had the world I'd give
+you half of it.' And that set her thinkin' what a nice surprise she
+could fix up if she'd will you some of her money. And she said, too,
+that Jonas was a good man but it worried her that she broke off with a
+poor man to marry a rich one when she liked the poor one best. I guess
+all that made her so queer and crabbit. She never let on when she was
+well that she wished she'd married you but when she come to die she
+didn't care much if it was found out. You just take that there money
+and enjoy it; that's what Rebecca wanted you should do."
+
+"Yes, I guess she wanted me to have it," the man said thoughtfully.
+"But it beats me why she did it. Why, I'd almost forgot that I ever
+kept company with her and was promised to marry her. It's so long ago."
+
+"Men do forget," said Millie. "I guess it's the women that remember.
+But the money's for you, that's her will, and she said I should be sure
+to see that the will is carried out and that the money goes where she
+said."
+
+"Yes--we can use it. We'll be glad for it. I wish I could say thanks to
+Becky for it. It don't seem right by Amos and Mary, though."
+
+"Ach, they don't need it. They got lots a'ready. The only ones that
+begrudge it are the relations of Jonas. None of them come to shake up a
+pillow for poor Rebecca or bring her an orange or get her a drink of
+water, but they come when the will was read. I just like to see such
+people get fooled! They wanted a lot and got a little and you didn't
+expect nothin' and look what you got! There's some nice surprises in
+the world, for all, ain't!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MARTIN'S DARK HOUR
+
+
+That summer Martin Landis was well pleased with the world in general.
+He enjoyed his work at the bank, where his cordiality and adeptness,
+his alert, receptive mind, were laying for him a strong foundation for
+a successful career.
+
+He called often at the home of Isabel Souders, listened to her playing,
+made one in an occasional game of cards, escorted her to musicals and
+dramas. He played and talked and laughed with her, but he soon
+discovered that he could not interest her in any serious matter. At the
+mention of his work, beyond the merest superficialities, she lifted her
+hands and said in laughing tones, "Please, Martin, don't talk shop!
+Father never does. I'm like Mother, I don't want to hear the petty
+details of money-making--all that interests me is the money itself. Dad
+says I'm spoiled--I suppose I am."
+
+At such times the troublesome memory of his father's words came to him,
+"You need a wife that will work with you and be a partner and not fail
+you when trouble comes." Try as he would the young man could not
+obliterate those haunting words from his brain. Sometimes he felt
+almost convinced in his own heart that he loved Isabel Souders--she was
+so appealing and charming and, while she rebuffed his confidences about
+his work, nevertheless showed so deep an interest in him generally,
+that he was temporarily blinded by it and excused her lack of real
+interest on the world-old ground that pretty women are not supposed to
+bother about prosaic affairs of the male wage-earners of the race.
+
+There were moments when her beauty so thrilled him that he felt moved
+to tell her he loved her and wanted to marry her, but somewhere in the
+subconscious mind of him must have dwelt the succinct words of the
+poster, "When in doubt, _don't!_" So the moments of fascination
+passed and the words of love were left unsaid.
+
+"Some day," he thought, "I'll know, I'll be sure. It will probably come
+to me like a flash of lightning whether I love her or not. I shouldn't
+be so undecided. I think if it were the real thing I feel for her there
+would be not the shadow of a doubt in my heart concerning it. A man
+should feel that the woman he wants to marry is the only one in the
+universe for him. Somehow, I can't feel that about her. But there's no
+hurry about marrying. We'll just go on being capital friends. Meanwhile
+I can be saving money so that if the time comes when I marry I'll be
+able to support a wife. Things look pretty rosy for me at present.
+Since Father is fixed with that legacy and the boys are old enough to
+take my place on the farm I have time to study and advance. I'm in luck
+all around; guess I got a horseshoe round my neck!"
+
+But the emblem of good luck must have soon lost its potency. The bank
+force was surprised one day by an unexpected examination of the books.
+
+"What's the trouble?" asked Martin of another worker in the bank.
+
+"I don't know. Ask old Buehlor. He acts as though he knew."
+
+Martin approached the gray-haired president, who was stamping about his
+place like an angry dog on leash. "Anything the matter, sir? Can I help
+in any way?"
+
+"Why, yes, there seems to be," he snapped. "Come in, Landis." He opened
+the door of his private office and Martin followed him inside. He gave
+one long look into the face of the young man--"I'm going to tell you.
+Perhaps you can make things easier for us to adjust in case there's
+anything wrong. An investigation has been ordered. One of our heaviest
+depositors seems to have some inside information that some one is
+spending the bank's money for personal use."
+
+"Good guns! In this bank? A thief?" Horror was printed on the face of
+Martin.
+
+The man opposite searched that face. "Yes--I might as well tell you--I
+feel like a brute to do so--if it's false it's a damnable trick, for
+such a thing is a fiendish calumny for an honest man to bear--you're
+the man under suspicion."
+
+Martin sat up, his eyes wide in horror, then his chest collapsed and
+his neck felt limber. "Oh, my God," he whispered, as though in appeal
+to the Infinite Father of Mercy and Justice, "what a thing to say about
+me! What a lie!"
+
+"It's a lie?" asked the older man tersely.
+
+"Absolutely! I've never stolen anything since the days I wore short
+pants and climbed the neighbors' trees for apples. Who says it?"
+
+"Well, I can't divulge that now. Perhaps later."
+
+Martin groaned. To be branded a thief was more than he could bear. His
+face went whiter.
+
+"See here," said the old man, "I almost shocked you to death, but I had
+a purpose in it. I couldn't believe that of you and knew I'd be able to
+read your face. You know, I believe you! It's all some infernal mistake
+or plot. You're not a clever enough actor to feign such distress and
+innocence. Go out and get some air and come back to-morrow morning.
+I'll stand for you in the meantime. I believe in you."
+
+"Thank you, sir," Martin managed to blurt out between dry lips that
+seemed almost paralyzed. "I'll be back in the morning. Hope you'll find
+I'm telling the truth."
+
+He walked as a somnambulist down the street. In his misery he thought
+of Isabel Souders. He would go to her for comfort. She'd understand and
+believe in him! He yearned like a hurt child for the love and
+tenderness of some one who could comfort him and sweep the demons of
+distress from his soul. He wanted to see Isabel, only Isabel! He felt
+relieved that no older member of the household was at home at that
+time, that the colored servant who answered his ring at the bell said
+Isabel was alone and would see him at once.
+
+"What's wrong?" the girl asked as she entered the room where he waited
+for her. "You look half dead!"
+
+"I am, Isabel," he said chokingly. "I've had a death-blow. They are
+accusing me of stealing the bank's money."
+
+"Oh, Martin! Oh, how dreadful! I'll never forgive you!" The girl spoke
+in tearful voice. "How perfectly dreadful to have such a thing said
+after Father got you into the bank! Your reputation is ruined for life!
+You can never live down such a disgrace."
+
+"But I didn't do it!" he cried. "You must know I couldn't have done
+it!"
+
+"Oh, I suppose you didn't if you say so, but people always are ready to
+say that where there's smoke there must be some fire! Oh, dear, people
+know you're a friend of mine and next thing the papers will link our
+names in the notoriety and--oh, what a dreadful thing to happen!
+They'll print horrible things about you and may drag me into it, too!
+Say you spent the money on me, or something like that! Father will be
+so mortified and sorry he helped you. Oh, dear, I think it's dreadful,
+dreadful!" She burst into weeping.
+
+As Martin watched her and listened to her utterly selfish words, in
+spite of the misery in his heart, he was keenly conscious that she was
+being weighed in the balance and found wanting. The lightning flash had
+come to him and revealed how impotent she was, how shallow and selfish.
+
+"Well, don't cry about it," he said, half bitterly, yet too crushed to
+be aught but gentle. "It won't hurt you. I'll see to that. If there's
+anything to bear I'll bear it alone. My shoulders are broad."
+
+There was more futile exchange of words, words that lacked any comfort
+or hope for the broken-hearted man. Martin soon left and started for
+his home.
+
+Home--he couldn't go there and tell his people that he was suspected of
+a crime. Home--its old sweet meaning would be changed for all of them
+if one of its flock was blackened.
+
+He flurried past the Reist farmhouse, head down like a criminal so that
+none should recognize him. With quick steps that almost merged into a
+run he went up the road. When he reached the little Crow Hill
+schoolhouse a sudden thought came to him. He climbed the rail fence and
+entered the woods, plodded up the hill to the spot where Amanda's
+moccasins grew each spring. There he threw himself on the grassy slope,
+face down, and gave vent to his despair.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE COMFORTER
+
+
+Amanda Reist knew the woods so well that she never felt any fear as she
+wandered about in them. That August morning as she climbed the fence by
+the school-yard and sauntered along the narrow paths between the trees
+she hummed a little song--not because of any particular happiness, but
+because the sky was blue and the woods were green and she loved to be
+outdoors.
+
+She climbed the narrow trail, gathering early goldenrod, which she
+suddenly dropped, and stood still. Before her, a distance of about
+twenty feet, lay the figure of a man, face down on the ground, his arms
+flung out, his hair disheveled. A great fear rose in her heart. Was it
+a tramp, an intoxicated wanderer, was he dead? She shrank from the
+sight and took a few backward steps, feeling a strong impulse to run,
+yet held riveted to the spot by some inexplicable, irresistible force.
+
+The figure moved slightly--why, it looked like Martin Landis! But he
+wouldn't be lying so in the grass at that time of day! The face of the
+man was suddenly turned to her and a cry came from her lips--it
+_was_ Martin Landis! But what a Martin Landis! Haggard and lined,
+his face looked like the face of a debilitated old man.
+
+"Martin," she called, anxiously. "Martin!"
+
+He raised his head and leaned on his elbow. "Oh," he groaned, then
+turned his head away.
+
+She ran to him then and knelt beside him in the grass. "What's wrong,
+Martin?" she asked, all the love in her heart rushing to meet the need
+of her "knight." "Tell me what's the matter."
+
+"They say I'm a thief!"
+
+"Who says so?" she demanded, a Xantippe-like flash in her eyes.
+
+"The bank, they're examining the books, swooped down like a lot of
+vultures and hunting for carrion right now."
+
+"For goodness' sake! Martin! Sit up and tell me about it! Don't cover
+your face as though you _were_ a thief! Of course there's some
+mistake, there must be! Get up, tell me. Let's sit over on that old log
+and get it straightened out."
+
+Spurred by her words he raised himself and she mechanically brushed the
+dry leaves from his coat as they walked to a fallen log and sat down.
+
+"Now tell me," she urged, "the whole story."
+
+Haltingly he told the tale, though the process hurt.
+
+"And you ran away," she exclaimed when he had finished. "You didn't
+wait to see what the books revealed? You ran right out here?"
+
+"Yes--no, I stopped at Isabel's."
+
+"Oh"--Amanda closed her eyes a moment--it had been Isabel first again!
+She quickly composed herself to hear what the city girl had done in the
+man's hour of trial. "Isabel didn't believe it, of course?" she asked
+quietly.
+
+"No, I suppose she didn't. But she cried and fussed and said my
+reputation was ruined for life and even if my innocence is proved I can
+never wholly live down such a reputation. She was worried because the
+thing may come out in the papers and her name brought into it. She's
+mighty much upset about Isabel Souders, didn't care a picayune about
+Martin Landis."
+
+"She'll get over it," Amanda told him, a lighter feeling in her heart.
+"What we are concerned about now is Martin Landis. You should have
+stayed and seen it through, faced them and demanded the lie to be
+traced to its source. Why, Martin, cheer up, this can't harm you!"
+
+"My reputation," he said gloomily.
+
+"Yes, your reputation is what people think you are, but your character
+is what you really are. A noble character can often change a very
+questionable reputation. You know you are honest as the day is long--we
+are all sure of that, all who know you. Martin, nothing can hurt
+_you!_ People can make you unhappy by such lies and cause the road
+to be a little harder to travel but no one except yourself can ever
+touch _you!_ Your character is impregnable. Brace up! Go back and
+tell them it's a lie and then prove it!"
+
+"Amanda"--the man's voice quavered. "Amanda, you're an angel! You make
+me buck up. When you found me I felt as though a load of bricks were
+thrown on my heart, but I'm beginning to see a glimmer of light. Of
+course, I can prove I'm innocent!"
+
+"Listen, look!" Amanda whispered. She laid a hand upon his arm while
+she pointed with the other to a tree near by.
+
+There sat an indigo bunting, that tiny bird of blue so intense that the
+very skies look pale beside it and among all the blue flowers of our
+land only the fringed gentian can rival it. With no attempt to hide his
+gorgeous self he perched in full view on a branch of the tree and began
+to sing in rapid notes. What the song lacked in sweetness was quite
+forgotten as they looked at the lovely visitant.
+
+"There's your blue bunting of hope," said Amanda as the bird suddenly
+became silent as though he were out of breath or too tired to finish
+the melody.
+
+"He's wonderful," said Martin, a light of hope once more in his eyes.
+
+"Yes, he is wonderful, not only because of his fine color but because
+he's the one bird that sultry August weather can't still. When all
+others are silent he sings, halts a while, then sings again. That is
+why I said he is your blue bunting of hope. Isn't it like that with us?
+When other feelings are gone hope stays with us, never quite deserts
+us--hear him!"
+
+True to his reputation the indigo bird burst once more into song, then
+off he flew, still singing his clear, rapid notes.
+
+"Amanda," the man said as the blue wings carried the bird out of sight,
+"you've helped me--I can't tell you how much! I'm going back to the
+bank and face that lie. If I could only find out who started it!"
+
+"I don't know, but I'd like to bet Mr. Mertzheimer is back of it,
+somehow. The old man is a heavy depositor there, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes, but why under the sun would he say such a thing about me? I never
+liked Lyman and he had no love for me, but he has no cause to bear me
+ill will. I haven't anything he wants, I'm sure."
+
+"No?" The girl bit her lip and felt her cheeks burn.
+
+Martin looked at her, amazed. Why was she blushing? Surely, she didn't
+like Lyman Mertzheimer!
+
+"Oh, Martin," she was thinking, "how blind you are! You do have
+something Lyman Mertzheimer wants. I can see through it all. He thinks
+with you disgraced I'll have eyes for him at last. The cheat! The
+cheat!" she said out loud.
+
+"What?" asked Martin.
+
+"He's a cheat, Lyman is. I hope he gets what's coming to him some day
+and I get a chance to see it! You see if that precious father of his is
+not at the bottom of all this worry for you!"
+
+"It may be. I'm going in to Lancaster and find out. If he is, and if I
+ever get my hands on him---"
+
+"Good-bye Lyman!" said Amanda, laughing. "But you wouldn't want to
+touch anything as low as he is."
+
+"I'd hate to have the chance; I'd pound him to jelly."
+
+"Oh, no, you wouldn't. You'd just look at him and he'd shrivel till
+he'd look like a dried crabapple snitz!"
+
+Both laughed at the girl's words. A moment later they rose from the old
+log and walked down the path. When they had climbed the fence and stood
+in the hot, sunny road Martin said, "I guess I'll go home and get
+cleaned up." He rubbed a hand through his tumbled hair.
+
+"And get something to eat," she added. "By that time you'll be ready,
+like Luther, to face a horde of devils."
+
+"Thanks to you," he said. "I'll never forget this half-hour just gone.
+Your blue bunting of hope will be singing in my heart whenever things
+go wrong. You said a few things to me that I couldn't forget if
+I wanted to--for instance, that nothing, nobody, can hurt _me_,
+except myself. That's something to keep in mind. I feel equal to fight
+now, fight for my reputation. Some kind providence must have sent you
+up the hill to find me."
+
+"Ach," she said depreciatively, "I didn't do a thing but steady you up
+a bit. I'm glad I happened to come up and see you. Go tell them if
+they're hunting for a thief they're looking in the wrong direction when
+they look at Martin Landis! Hurry! So you can get back before they
+think you've run away. I'll be so anxious to hear how much the
+Mertzheimers have to do with this. I can see their name written all
+over it!"
+
+Smiling, almost happy again, the man turned down the road to his home
+and Amanda went on to the Reist farmhouse. She, too, was smiling as she
+went. She had read between the lines of the man's story and had seen
+there the moving finger writing above the name of Isabel Souders,
+"_Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin_."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+VINDICATION
+
+
+When Martin Landis entered the bank early in the afternoon of that same
+day he presented a different appearance from that of his departure in
+the morning. His head was held erect, his step determined, as he opened
+the swinging door of the bank and entered.
+
+"What--Landis, you back?" Mr. Buehlor greeted him, while the quizzical
+eyes of the old man looked into those of the younger.
+
+"I'm back and I'm back to get this hideous riddle solved and the slate
+washed clean."
+
+"Come in, come in!" Mr. Buehlor drew him into a little room and closed
+the door. "Sit down, Landis."
+
+"Well, how much is the bank short?" He looked straight into the eyes of
+the man who, several hours before, had dealt him such a death-blow.
+
+"So far everything is right, right as rain! There's a mistake or a
+damnable dirty trick somewhere."
+
+"Let's sift it out, Mr. Buehlor. Will you tell me who had the 'inside
+information' that I was taking bank's money?"
+
+"I'll tell you! It was a farmer near your home---"
+
+"Mr. Mertzheimer?" offered Martin.
+
+"The same! He asked to have you watched, then changed it and insisted
+on having the books examined. Said your people are poor--forgive me,
+Landis, but I have to tell you the whole story."
+
+"Don't mind that. That's a mere scratch after what I got this morning."
+
+"Well, he said your father had a mortgage on his farm up to the time
+you came to work in the bank, then suddenly it was paid and soon after
+the house was painted, a new bathroom installed, electric lights put
+into the house and steam heat, a Victrola and an automobile bought. In
+fact, your people launched out as though they had found a gold mine,
+and that in spite of the fact that your crop of tobacco was ruined by
+hail and the other income from the farm products barely enough to keep
+things going until another harvest. He naturally thought you must have
+a hand in supplying the money and with your moderate salary you
+couldn't do half of that. He talked with several of the bank directors
+and an investigation was ordered. You'll admit his story sounded
+plausible. It looked pretty black for you."
+
+"To you, yes! But not to him! Mr. Mertzheimer knows well enough where
+that money came from. My father had a legacy of ten thousand dollars
+this spring. You people could have found that out with very little
+trouble."
+
+"We're a pack of asinine blunderers, Landis!" Mr. Buehlor looked
+foolish. Then he sighed relievedly. "That clears matters for you. I'm
+glad. I couldn't conceive of you as anything but honest, Landis. But
+tell me about that legacy--a pretty nice sum."
+
+"It's a romantic little story. An old sweetheart of my father, one who
+must have carried under her prickly exterior a bit of tender romance
+and who liked to do things other people never dreamed of doing, left
+him ten thousand dollars. She was a queer old body. Had no direct
+heirs, so she left Father ten thousand dollars for a little
+remembrance! It was that honest money that paid for the conveniences in
+our house, the second-hand car Father bought and the Victrola he gave
+Mother because we are all crazy for music and had nothing to create any
+melody except an old parlor organ that sounded wheezy after nine babies
+had played on it."
+
+"Landis, forgive me; we're a set of fools!" The old man extended his
+hand and looked humbly into the face of Martin. The two gripped hands,
+each feeling emotion too great for words.
+
+After a moment's silence Mr. Buehlor spoke.
+
+"This goes no farther. Your reputation is as safe as mine. If I have
+anything to say you'll be eligible for the first vacancy in the line of
+advancement. As for that Mertzheimer, he can withdraw his account from
+our bank to-day for all we care. We can do business without him. But it
+puzzles me--what object did he have? If he knew of the legacy, and he
+certainly did, he must have known you were O.K. Is he an enemy of
+yours?"
+
+"Not particularly. I never liked his son but we never had any real
+tilts."
+
+"You don't happen to want the same girl he wants, or anything like
+that?"
+
+"No--well now--why, I don't know!" A sudden revelation came to Martin.
+Perhaps Lyman thought he had a rival in him. That would explain much.
+"There's a son, as I said, and we know a girl I think he's been crazy
+about for years. Perhaps he thinks I'm after her, too."
+
+"I see," chuckled the old man. "Well, if the girl's the right sort she
+won't have to toss a penny to decide which one to choose." He noted the
+embarrassment of Martin and changed the subject.
+
+But later in the afternoon as Martin walked down the road from the
+trolley and drew near the Reist farmhouse the old man's words recurred
+to him. Why, he'd known Amanda Reist all his life! He had never dreamed
+she could comfort and help a man as she had done that morning in the
+woods. Amanda was a fine girl, a great pal, a woman with a heart.
+
+Now Isabel--a great disgust rose in him for the sniveling, selfish
+little thing and her impotence in the face of his trouble. "She's just
+the kind to play with," he thought, "just a doll, and like the doll,
+has as much heart as a thing stuffed with sawdust can have. I guess it
+took this jolt to wake me up and know that Isabel Souders is not the
+type of girl for me."
+
+When he reached the Reist home he found Amanda and her Uncle Amos on
+the porch.
+
+"Oh, it's all right!" the girl cried as he came into the yard. "I can
+read it in your face." Gladness rang in her voice like a bell.
+
+"It's all right," Martin told her.
+
+"Good! I'm glad," said Uncle Amos while Amanda smiled her happiness.
+
+"Was I right?" she asked. "Was it the work of Mertzheimers?"
+
+"It was. They must hate me like poison."
+
+"Ach, he's a copperhead," said Uncle Amos. "He's so pesky low and mean
+he can't bear to see any one else be honest. You're gettin' up too far
+to suit him. It's always so that when abody climbs up the ladder a
+little there's some settin' at the foot ready to joggle it, and the
+higher abody climbs the more are there to help try to shake you down. I
+guess there's mean people everywheres, even in this here beautiful
+Garden Spot. But to my notion you got to just go on doin' right and not
+mind 'em. They'll get what they earn some day. Nobody has yet sowed
+weeds and got a crop of potatoes from it."
+
+"But," said the girl, "I can't understand it. The Mertzheimer people
+come from good families and they have certainly been taught to be
+different. I can't see where they get their mean streak. With all their
+money and chance to improve and opportunities for education and
+culture---"
+
+"Ach, money"--said Uncle Amos--"what good does money do them if they
+don't have the right mind to use it? My granny used to say still you
+can tie a silk ribbon round a pig's neck but she'll wallow in the dirt
+just the same first chance she'll get. I guess some people are like
+that. Well, Martin, I'm goin' in to tell Millie--the women--it's all
+right with you. They was so upset about it. And won't Millie talk!" He
+chuckled at the thought of what that staunch woman would say about Mr.
+Mertzheimer. "Millie can hit the nail on the head pretty good, pretty
+good," he said as he ambled into the house.
+
+Martin lingered on the porch with Amanda till the sound of the Landis
+supper bell called him home.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DINNER AT LANDIS'S
+
+
+The following afternoon little Katie Landis came running down the road
+and in at the Reist gate. She greeted Amanda with, "Mom says you got to
+come to our place for supper."
+
+"To-day?"
+
+"Yes. She's goin' to kill two chickens and have a big time and she
+wants you to come."
+
+"Anybody coming? Any company?"
+
+"No, just you."
+
+"All right. Tell Mother I said thank you and I'll be glad to come."
+
+"All right, I'll run and tell her. I'm in a hurry, for me and Emma's
+playin' house and I got to get back to my children before they miss me
+and set up a howlin'." She looked very serious as she ran off down the
+lane, Amanda smiling after her.
+
+Later, as the girl went down the road to the Landis home she wondered
+whose birthday it might be, or what the cause of celebration. The child
+had been in such great haste--but what matter the significance of the
+festivity so long as she was asked to enjoy it!
+
+"Here's Amanda!" shouted several of the children gleefully, very boldly
+dropping the Miss they were obliged to use during school hours.
+
+The guest found Mrs. Landis stirring up a blackberry pone, the three
+youngest Landis children watching the progress of it.
+
+"Oh, hello, Amanda. I'm glad you got here early. Look at these
+children, all waitin' for the dish to lick. Don't it beat all how
+children like raw dough! I used to, but I wouldn't eat it now if you
+paid me."
+
+"So did I. Millie chased me many a time."
+
+"Well, people's tastes change in more than one way when they get older.
+I guess it's a good thing. Here, Katie, take that doll off of that
+chair so Amanda can find a place to sit down. You got every chair in
+the house littered up with things. Ach, Amanda, I scold still about
+their things laying round but I guess folks that ain't got children
+would sometimes be glad if they could see toys and things round the
+place. They get big soon enough and the dolls are put away. My, this
+will be an awful lonely house when the children all grow up! I'd rather
+see it this way, with their things scattered all around. But the boys
+are worse than the girls. What Charlie don't have in his pants pocket
+ain't in the 'cyclopedia. Martin was that way, too. He had an old box
+in the wood-shed and it was stuffed with all the twine and wire and
+nails he could find. But now, Amanda, ain't it good he got that all
+made right at the bank so they know he ain't a thief?
+
+My, that was an awful sin for Mr. Mertzheimer to make our Mart out a
+thief! I just wonder how he could be so mean and ugly. I guess you
+wonder why I asked you up to-night. It ain't nothin' special, just a
+little good time because Martin got proved honest again. I just said to
+Mister this morning that I'm so glad for Martin I feel like makin'
+something extra for supper and ask you up for you ain't been here for a
+meal for long."
+
+"It's grand to ask me to it."
+
+"Ach, we don't mind you. You're just like one of the family, abody
+might say. We won't fix like for company, eat in the room or anything
+like that."
+
+"Well, I hope not. I'm no company. Let's eat in the kitchen and have
+everything just as you do when the family's alone."
+
+"Yes," agreed Mrs. Landis. "That will be more homelike."
+
+Mary helped to set the table in the big kitchen.
+
+"Shall I lay the spoons on the table-cloth like we did when Isabel was
+here?" she asked her mother.
+
+"Better put them in the spoon-holder," Amanda told her. "I'm no
+company."
+
+"I'm glad you ain't. I don't like tony company like that girl was. She
+put on too much when she talked. And she had the funniest cheeks! Once
+she wiped her face when it was hot and pink came off on her
+handkerchief."
+
+Amanda laughed and kept smiling as she helped the child set the table
+for supper. Later she offered her services to Mrs. Landis. Martin,
+coming in from the dusty road, found her before the stove, one of his
+mother's gingham aprons tied around her waist, and turning sweet
+potatoes in a big iron pan.
+
+"Why, hello!" he said, pleasure written in his face. "Katie ran to meet
+me and said I couldn't guess who was here for supper. Has Mother got
+you working? Um," he sniffed, "smells awful much like chicken!"
+
+"Ach," his mother told him, "you just hold your nose shut a while! You
+and your pop can smell chicken off a mile. But you dare ring the supper
+bell, Martin, before you go up-stairs to wash, so your pop and the boys
+can come in now and get ready, too."
+
+Soon the savory, smoking dishes were all placed on the big table in the
+kitchen and the family with their guest gathered for the meal.
+
+"Ain't I dare keep my coat off, Mom?" asked Mr. Landis, his face
+flushed from a long hot day in the fields.
+
+"Why, yes, if Amanda don't care."
+
+"Why should I? Look at my cool dress! Take your coat off, Martin. I
+never could see why men should roast while we keep comfortable."
+
+As Martin stripped the serge coat off he thought of that other dinner
+when coats were kept on and dinner eaten in "the room" because of the
+presence of one who might take offense if she were expected to share
+the plain, every-day ways of the family. What a fool he had been! Their
+best efforts at style and convention must have looked very amateurish
+and incomplete to her--what a fool he had been!
+
+"Ah, that looks good!" Mr. Landis said after he had said grace and
+everybody waited for the food to be passed. "Now we'll just hand the
+platter around and let everybody help themselves, not so, Mom?"
+
+"Yes, that's all right. Start the potatoes once, Martin. Now you must
+eat, Amanda. Just make yourself right at home."
+
+"Martin, you must eat hearty, too,", said the father. "Your mom made
+this supper for you."
+
+"For me? What's the idea? Feeding the prodigal? Fatted calf and all
+that, Mother?" the boy asked, smiling,
+
+"Calf--nothing!" exclaimed little Charlie. "It's them two roosters Mom
+said long a'ready she's goin' to kill once and cook and here they are!"
+
+Charlie wondered why everybody laughed at that but he soon forgot about
+it as his mother handed him a plate piled high with food.
+
+Amanda scarcely knew what she was eating that day. Each mouthful had
+the taste of nectar and ambrosia to her. If she could _belong_ to
+a family like that! She adored her own people and felt certain that no
+one could wish for a finer family than the one in which she had been
+placed, but it seemed, by comparison with the Landis one, a very small,
+quiet family. She wished she could be a part of both, make the twelfth
+in that charming circle in which she sat that day.
+
+After supper Mrs. Landis turned to Amanda--"Now you stay a while and
+hear our new pieces on the Victrola."
+
+"I'll help you with the dishes," she offered.
+
+"Ach, no, it ain't necessary. Mary and I will get them done up in no
+time. You just go in the room and enjoy yourself."
+
+With little Katie leading the way and Martin following Amanda went to
+the sitting-room and sat down while Martin opened the Victrola.
+
+"What do you like?" he asked. "Something lively? Or do you like soft
+music better?"
+
+"I like both. What are your new pieces?"
+
+"McCormack singing 'Mother Machree---'"
+
+"Oh, I like that! Play that!"
+
+As the soft, haunting melody of "Mother Machree" sounded in the room
+Mrs. Landis came to the door of the sitting-room, dish towel in hand.
+
+"Ach," she said after the last verse, "I got that record most wore out
+a'ready. Ain't it the prettiest song? When I hear that I think still
+that if only one of my nine children feels that way about me I'm more
+than paid for any bother I had with them."
+
+"Then, Mother," said Martin, "you should feel more than nine times
+paid, for we all feel that way about you."
+
+"Listen, now!" The mother's eyes were misty as she looked at her first-
+born. "Ach, play it again. I only hope poor Becky knows how much good
+her money's doin' us!"
+
+Later Martin walked with Amanda up the moonlit road to her home. "I've
+had a lovely time, Martin," she told him. "You do have the nicest,
+lively family! I wish we had a tableful like that!"
+
+"You wouldn't wish it at dish-washing time, I bet! But they are a
+lively bunch. I wonder sometimes how Mother escapes _nerves_. If
+she feels irritable or tired she seldom shows it. I believe six of us
+can ask her questions at once and she knows how to answer each in its
+turn. But Mother never does much useless worrying. That keeps her
+youthful and calm. She has often said to us, 'What's the use of
+worrying? Worrying never gets you anywhere except into hot water--so
+what's the use of it?' That's a pet philosophy of hers."
+
+"I remember that. I've heard her say it. Your mother's wonderful!"
+
+"She thinks the same about you, Amanda, for she said so the other day."
+
+"Me?" The girl turned her face from him so that the moonlight might not
+reveal her joy.
+
+"You," he said happily, laughing in boyish contentment. "We think
+Amanda Reist is all right."
+
+The girl was glad they had reached the gate of her home. She fumbled
+with the latch and escaped an answer to the man's words. Then they
+spoke commonplace good-nights and parted.
+
+That night as she brushed her hair she stood a long time before the
+mirror. "Amanda Reist," she said to the image in the glass, "you better
+take care--next thing you know you'll be falling in love!" She leaned
+closer to the glass. "Oh, I'll have to keep that shine from my eyes!
+It's there just because Martin walked home with me and was kind. I
+don't look as though I need any boneset tea _now!"_
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BERRYING
+
+
+The next morning Amanda helped her mother with the Saturday baking
+while Millie and Uncle Amos tended market.
+
+"This hot weather the pies get soft till Sunday if we bake them a'ready
+on Friday," Mrs. Reist said to Millie, "so Amanda and I can do the
+bakin' while you go to market. I guess we'll have a lot of company
+again this Sunday, with church near here."
+
+"All right, let 'em come," said the hired girl composedly. "I don't
+care if you don't. It's a good thing we all like company pretty good,
+for I think sometimes people take this place for a regular boarding-
+house, the way they drop in at any time, just as like when we're ready
+to set down for a meal as at any other hour. Philip said last week,
+when that Sallie Snyder dropped in just at dinner, that he's goin' to
+paint a sign, 'Mad Dog,' and hang it on the gate. But I think we might
+as well put one up, 'Meals served at all hours,' but ach, that's
+Lancaster County for you!"
+
+Mrs. Reist liked to do her baking early in the day. So it happened that
+when Martin Landis stopped in to see Amanda before he went to his work
+in the city he saw on the kitchen table a long row of pies ready for
+the oven and Amanda deftly rolling the edge of another.
+
+"Whew!" he whistled. "Mrs. Reist, is that your work or Amanda's so
+early in the morning?"
+
+"Amanda's! My granny used to say still that no girl was ready to get
+married till she could roll out a thin pie dough. I guess my girl is
+almost ready, for she got hers nice and thin this morning. Ach," she
+thought in dismay as she saw the girl's face flush, "now why did I say
+that? I didn't think how it would sound. But Amanda needn't mind
+Martin!"
+
+Merry little twinkles played around Martin's gray eyes as he answered,
+"I see. Looks as if Amanda's ready for a husband--if she's going to
+feed him on pies!"
+
+"On pies--Martin Landis!" scorned the girl. "I'd have a dyspeptic on my
+hands after a few days of pie diet."
+
+"Well, you'd make a pretty good nurse, I believe."
+
+"Nurse--not me! The only thing I know how to nurse is hurt birds and
+lame bunnies and such things. You just lay them in a box and feed them,
+and if they get well you clap your hands, and if they die you put some
+leaves and flowers on them and bury them out in the woods--remember how
+we used to do that?"
+
+"Do I? I should say I do! The time we had the fence hackey that Lyman
+Mertzheimer hurt with a stone--"
+
+"Oh, and I nursed him and fed him, and when I let him go he bit my
+finger! I remember that! I was so cross at him I cried."
+
+"Wretch that he was," said Martin. "But if we begin talking about those
+days I won't get to work. I stopped in to ask you to go berrying with
+us this afternoon. I get out of the bank early. We can go up to the
+woods back of the schoolhouse. The youngsters are anxious to go, and
+Mother won't let them go alone, since that copperhead was killed near
+here. I promised to take them, and we'd all like to have you come."
+
+"I'd love to go. I'll be all ready. I haven't gone for blackberries all
+season."
+
+"That's true, we've been missing lots of fun." He looked at her as
+though he were seeing her after a long absence. Somehow, he had missed
+something worth while from his life during the time his head had been
+turned by Isabel, and he had passed Amanda with a smile and a greeting
+and had no hours of companionship with her. Why, he didn't remember
+that her eyes were so bright, that her red hair waved so becomingly,
+that--
+
+"I'll bring a kettle," she said. "I'm going to pick till I fill it,
+too, just as we did when we were youngsters."
+
+"All right. We'll meet you at the schoolhouse."
+
+The spur of mountains near Crow Hill was a favorite berrying range for
+the people of that section of Lancaster County. In July and August
+huckleberries, elders and blackberries grew there in fragrant
+luxuriance.
+
+When Amanda, in an old dress of cool green, a wide-brimmed hat on her
+head, came in sight of the schoolhouse, she saw the Landis party
+approaching it from the other direction. She swung her tin pail in
+greeting.
+
+"Oh, there's Amanda!" the children shouted and ran to meet her, tin
+pails clanging and dust flying.
+
+Martin, too, wore old clothes that would be none the worse for meeting
+with briars or crushed berries. A wide straw hat perched on his head
+made Amanda think, "He looks like a grown-up edition of Whittier's
+Barefoot Boy."
+
+"Here we are, all ready," said the leader, as they started off to the
+crude rail fence. Martin would have helped Amanda over the fence, but
+she ran from him, put up one foot, and was over it in a trice.
+
+"Still a nimble-toes," he said, laughing. "Mary, can you do as well?"
+
+"Pooh, yes! Who can't climb a fence?" The little girl was over it in a
+minute. The smaller children lay flat on the ground and squirmed
+through under the lower rail, while one of the boys climbed up,
+balanced himself on the top rail, then leaped into the grass.
+
+"I see some berries!" cried Katie, and began to pick them.
+
+"We'll go in farther," said Martin. "The bushes near the road have been
+almost stripped. Come on, keep on the path and watch out for snakes."
+
+There was a well-defined, narrow trail through the timbered land.
+Though the weeds had been trodden down along each side of it there were
+dense portions where snakes might have found an ideal home. After a
+long walk the little party was in the heart of the woods and blackberry
+bushes, dark with clusters, waited for their hands. Berries soon
+rattled in the tin pails, though at first many a handful was eaten and
+lips were stained red by the sweet juice. They wandered from bush to
+bush, picking busily, with many exclamations--"Oh, look what a big
+bunch!" "My pail's almost full!" Little Katie and Charlie soon grew
+tired of the picking and wandered around the path in search of
+treasures. They found them--three pretty blue feathers, dropped, no
+doubt, by some screaming blue jay, a handful of green acorns in their
+little cups, a few pebbles that appealed to them, one lone, belated
+anemone, blooming months after its season.
+
+The pails were almost filled and the party was moving up the woods to
+another patch of berries when little Mary turned to Amanda and said,
+"Ach, Amanda, tell us that story about the Bear Charm Song."
+
+"Yes, do!" seconded Charlie. "The one you told us once in school last
+winter."
+
+Amanda smiled, and as the little party walked along close together
+through the woods, she began:
+
+"Once the Indians lived where we are living now---"
+
+"Oh, did they?" interrupted Charlie. "Real Indians, with bows and
+arrows and all?"
+
+"Yes, real Indians, bows and arrows and all! They owned all the land
+before the white man came and drove them off. But now the Indians are
+far away from here and they are different from the ones we read about
+in the history books. The Indians now are more like the poor birds
+people put in cages---" Her eyes gleamed and her face grew eloquent
+with expression as she thought of the gross injustice meted out to some
+of the red men in this land of the free.
+
+"Go on, Manda, go on with the story," cried the children. Only Martin
+had seen the look in her eyes, that mother-look of compassion.
+
+"Very well, I'll go on."
+
+"And, Charlie," said Mary, "you keep quiet now and don't break in when
+Manda talks."
+
+"Well," the story-teller resumed, "the Indians who lived out in the
+woods, far from towns or cities, had to find all their own food. They
+caught fish, shot animals and birds, planted corn and gathered berries.
+Some of them they ate at once, but many of them they dried and stored
+away for winter use. While the older Indians did harder work, the
+little Indian children ran off to the woods and gathered the berries.
+But one thing they had to look out for--bears! Great big bears lived in
+the woods and they are very fond of sweet things. The bears would amble
+along, peel great handfuls of ripe berries from the bushes with their
+big clawed paws and eat them. So all good Indian mothers taught their
+children a Bear Charm Song to sing as they gathered berries. Whenever
+the bears heard the Bear Charm Song they went to some other part of the
+woods and left the children to pick their berries unharmed. But once
+there was a little Indian boy who wouldn't mind his mother. He went to
+the woods one day to gather berries, but he wouldn't sing the Bear
+Charm Song, not he! So he picked berries and picked berries, and all of
+a sudden a great big bear stood by him. Then the little Indian boy, who
+wouldn't mind his mother, began to sing the Bear Charm Song. But it was
+too late. The great big bear put his big paws around the little boy and
+squeezed him, squeezed him, tighter and tighter and tighter--till the
+little boy who wouldn't mind his mother was changed into a tiny black
+bat. Then he flew back to his mother, but she didn't know him, and so
+she chased him and said, 'Go away! Little black bird of the night, go
+away!' And that is where the bats first came from."
+
+"Ain't that a good story?" said Charlie as Amanda ended. "Tell us
+another."
+
+"Not now. Perhaps after a while," she promised. "Here's another patch
+of berries. Shall we pick here?"
+
+"Yes, fill the pails," said Martin, "then we'll be ready for the next
+number on the program. It seems Amanda's the committee of one to
+entertain us."
+
+But the next number on the program was furnished by an unexpected
+participant. The berrying party was busy picking when a crash was heard
+as if some heavy body were running wild through the leaves and sticks
+of the woods near by.
+
+"Oh," cried Charlie, "I bet that's a bear! Manda, sing a Bear Charm
+Song!"
+
+"Oh," echoed Katie in alarm, and ran to the side of Amanda, while
+Martin lifted his head and stood, alert, looking into the woods in the
+direction of the noise. The crashing drew nearer, and then the figure
+of a man came running wildly through the bushes, waving his hands
+frantically in the air, then pressing them to his face.
+
+"It's Lyman Mertzheimer!" Amanda exclaimed.
+
+"With hornets after him," added Martin.
+
+The children, reassured, ran to the newcomer.
+
+It was Lyman Mertzheimer, his face distorted and swollen, his necktie
+streaming from one shoulder, where he had torn it in a mad effort to
+beat off the angry hornets whose nest he had disturbed out of sheer joy
+in the destruction and an audacious idea that no insect could scare him
+away or worst him in a fight. He had underestimated the fiery temper of
+the hornets and their concentrated and persistent methods of defending
+their home. After he had run wildly through the woods for fifteen
+minutes and struck out repeatedly the insects left him, just as he
+reached the berrying party. But the hornets had wreaked their anger
+upon him; face, hands and neck bore evidence of the battle they had
+waged.
+
+"First time hornets got me!" he said crossly as he neared the little
+party. "Oh, you needn't laugh!" he cried in angry tones as Charlie
+snickered.
+
+"But you look funny--all blotchy."
+
+The stung man allowed his anger to burst out in oaths. "Guess you think
+it's funny, too," he said to Amanda.
+
+"No. I'm sure it hurts," she said, though she knew he deserved no pity
+from her.
+
+"We all know that it hurts," said Martin. But there was scant sympathy
+in his voice.
+
+"Smear mud on," suggested Mary. "Once I got stung by a bumblebee when
+he went in a hollyhock and I held the flower shut so he couldn't get
+out, and he stung me through the flower. Mom put mud on and it helped."
+
+"Mud!" stormed Lyman, stepping about in the bush and twisting his head
+in pain. "There isn't any mud in Lancaster County now. The whole place
+is dry as punk!"
+
+"If you had some of the mud you slung at me recently it would come in
+handy now," Martin could not refrain from saying.
+
+Another oath greeted his words. Then the stung young man started off
+down the road to find relief from his smarts, ignoring the fling.
+
+"Well," said Amanda, "well, of all things! For him to tackle a hornets'
+nest! Just for the fun of it!"
+
+"But he got his come-uppance for once! Got it from the hornets," said
+Martin. "Serves him right."
+
+"But that hurts," said Mary sympathetically. "Hornets hurt awful bad!"
+
+"Yes," said Martin as they turned homeward. "But he's getting paid for
+all the mean tricks he's played on other people."
+
+"Mebbe God made the hornets sting him if he's a bad man," said Charlie.
+
+"We all get what we give out," agreed Martin. "Lyman Mertzheimer will
+feel those hornet stings for a few days. While I've always been taught
+not to rejoice at the misfortunes of others I'm not sorry I saw him.
+I'll call our account square now. You pitied him, didn't you?" he asked
+Amanda suddenly. "I saw it in your eyes. So did Mary and Katie."
+
+"Of course I pitied him," she confessed. "I'd feel sorry for anything
+or anybody who suffers. I know it serves him right, that he's earned
+worse than that, and yet I would have relieved him if I could have done
+so. Nature meant that we should be decent, I suppose."
+
+The man was thoughtful for a moment. "Yes, I suppose so. It is a
+woman's nature."
+
+"Would you have us different?"
+
+"No--no--we wouldn't have you different. Many of the best men would be
+mere brutes if women's pity and tenderness and forgiveness were taken
+out of their lives--we wouldn't have you different."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP
+
+
+The following Sunday at noon Martin passed the Reist farmhouse as he
+drove his mother and several of the children to Mennonite church at
+Landisville. After the service he passed that way again and noticed
+several cars stopping at Reists'. Evidently they were entertaining a
+number of visitors for Sunday dinner after the service, as is the
+custom in rural Lancaster County. The big porch was filled with people
+who rocked or leaned idly against the pillars, while in the big kitchen
+Millie, Amanda and Mrs. Reist worked near the hot stove and prepared an
+appetizing dinner for them.
+
+Amanda did not shirk her portion of the necessary work, but rebellion
+was in her heart as she noted her mother's flushed, tired face.
+
+"Mother, if you'd only feel that Millie and I could get the dinner
+without you! It's a shame to have you in this kitchen on a day like
+this!"
+
+"Ach, I'm not so hot. I'm not better than you or Millie," the mother
+insisted, and stuck to her post, while Amanda murmured, "This Sunday
+visiting--how I hate it! We've outgrown the need of it now, especially
+with automobiles."
+
+But at length the meal was placed upon the table, the guests gathered
+from porches and lawn and an hour later the dishes were washed and
+everything at peace once more in the kitchen. Then Amanda walked out to
+the garden at the rear of the house.
+
+"Ooh," she sighed in relief, "I'm glad that's over! Visiting on such a
+day should be made a misdemeanor!" She pulled idly on a zinnia that
+lifted its globular red head in the hot August sun.
+
+"Hey, Sis," came Phil's voice to her, "he wants you on the 'phone!"
+
+"Who's he?" she asked as the boy ran out to her in the garden.
+
+They turned to the house, talking as they went.
+
+"Well, Sis, you know who _he_ is! He's coming round here all the
+time lately."
+
+A gentle shove from the girl rewarded the boy for his teasing, but he
+was not easily daunted. "Don't you remember," he said, "how that old
+Mrs. Haldeman who kept tine candy store near the market house in
+Lancaster used to call her husband _he_? She never called him
+Mister or Mr. Haldeman, just _he_, and you could feel she would
+have written it in italics if she could."
+
+"Well, that was all right, there was only one _he_ in the world so
+far as she was concerned. But do you remember, Phil, the time Mother
+took us in her store to buy candy and we talked to her canary and the
+old woman said, 'Ach, yes, I think still how good birds got it! I often
+wish I was a canary, but then he would have to be one too!' We
+disgraced Mother by giggling fit to kill ourselves. But the old woman
+just smiled at us and gave us each a pink and white striped peppermint
+stick. Now run along, Phil, don't be eavesdropping," she said as they
+reached the hall and she sat down to answer the telephone.
+
+"That you, Amanda?" came over the wire.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Got a houseful of company? It seemed like that when we drove past.
+Overflow meeting on the porch!"
+
+"Oh, yes, as usual."
+
+"What I wanted to know is--are there any young people among the
+visitors, that makes it a matter of courtesy for you to stay at home
+all afternoon?"
+
+"No, they are all older people to-day, and a few little children."
+
+"Good! Then how would you like to have a little picnic, just we two? I
+want to get away from Victrola music and children's questions and four
+walls, and I thought you might have a similar longing."
+
+"Mental telepathy, Martin! That's just what I was thinking as I was out
+in the garden."
+
+"Then I'll call for you and we'll go up past the sandpit to that
+hilltop where the breeze blows even on a day like this."
+
+When Martin came for her she was ready, a lunch tucked under one arm,
+two old pillows in the other. She had given the red hair a few pats,
+added several hairpins, slipped off her white dress and buttoned up a
+pale green chambray one with cool white collar and cuffs. She stood
+ready, attractive, as Martin entered the lawn.
+
+"Say!" he whistled. "You did that in short order! I thought it took
+girls hours to dress."
+
+"Then you're like Solomon; you can't understand the ways of women!" She
+laughed as she handed him the lunch-box.
+
+Her calm efficiency puzzled him. Lately he was discovering so many
+undreamed of qualities in this lively friend of his childhood. He was
+beginning to feel some of the wonder those people must have felt whose
+children played with pebbles that were one day discovered to be
+priceless uncut diamonds. Until that day she had found him prostrate in
+her moccasin woods he had thought of her as just Amanda Reist, a nice,
+jolly girl with a quick temper if you tried her too hard and a quick
+tongue to express it, but a good comrade and a pleasant companion if
+you treated her fairly.
+
+Then his attitude had undergone a change. After that day of his great
+unhappiness he thought of her as a woman, staunch, courageous, yet
+gentle and feminine, one who had faith in her old friend, who could
+comfort a man when he was downcast and help him raise his head again. A
+wonderful woman she was! One who loved pretty clothes and things modern
+and yet appreciated the charm of the old-fashioned, and seemed to
+dovetail perfectly into the plain grooves of her people and his with
+their quaint old dress and houses and manners. A woman, too, who had an
+intense love for the great outdoors. Not the shallow, pretentious love
+that would call forth gushing rhapsodies about moonlight or sunsets or
+the spectacular alone in nature, but a sincere, deep-rooted love that
+shone in her eyes as she stooped to see more plainly the tracery of
+veins in a fallen leaf and moved her to gentle speech to the birds,
+butterflies and woodland creatures as though they could understand and
+answer.
+
+As they walked down the country road he looked at her. He had a way of
+noticing women's clothes and had become an observant judge of their
+becomingness. In her growing-up days Amanda had been frequently angered
+by his frank, unsolicited remarks about the colors she wore--this blue
+was off color for her red hair, or that golden brown was just the
+thing. Later she grew accustomed to his remarks and rather expected
+them. They still disconcerted her at times, but she had long ago ceased
+to grow angry about them.
+
+"That green's the color for you to-day," he said, as they went along.
+"Do you know, I've often thought I'd like to see you in a black gown
+and a string of real jade beads around your neck."
+
+"Jade! Was there ever a red head who didn't wish she had a string of
+jade beads?"
+
+"You'd be great!"
+
+"So would the price," she told him, laughing. "A string of real jade
+would cost as much as a complete outfit of clothes I wear."
+
+"Then you should have black hair and cheap coral ones would do."
+
+"Why, Martin," she said in surprise, "you _are_ studying color
+combinations, aren't you?"
+
+"Oh, not exactly; I'm not interested in all colors. But say, that
+reminds me--I saw a girl in Lancaster last winter who had hair like
+yours and about the same coloring. She wore a brown suit and brown hat
+and furs--it was great."
+
+"I'd like to have that." Daughter of Eve! She liked it because he did!
+"But don't speak about furs on a day like this! It's hot--too hot,
+Martin, for a houseful of company, don't you think so?"
+
+"It is hot to stand and cook for extra people."
+
+"Well, perhaps it's wicked, but I hate this Sunday visiting the people
+of Lancaster County indulge in! I never did like it!"
+
+"I'm not keen about it myself. Sunday seems to me to be a day to go to
+church and rest and enjoy your family, sometimes to go off to the woods
+like this. But a houseful of buzzing visitors swarming through it--whew!
+it does spoil the Sabbath."
+
+"I never did like to visit," confessed the girl. "Not unless I went to
+people I really cared for. When we were little and Mother would take
+Phil and me to visit relatives or friends I merely liked I'd be there a
+little while and then I'd tug at Mother's skirt and beg, 'Mom, we want
+to go home.' I suppose I spoiled many a visit for her. I was
+self-willed even then."
+
+"You are a stubborn person," he said, with so different a meaning that
+Amanda flushed.
+
+"I know I am. And I have a nasty temper, too."
+
+"Don't you know," he consoled her, "that a temper controlled makes a
+strong personality? George Washington had one, the history books say,
+but he made it serve him."
+
+"And that's no easy achievement." The girl spoke from her own
+experience. "It's like pulling molars to press your lips together and
+be quiet when you want to rear and tear and stamp your feet."
+
+"Well, come down to hard facts, and how many of us will have to admit
+that we have feelings like that at times? There is still a good share
+of the primitive man left in our natures. We're not saints. Why, even
+the churches that believe in saints don't canonize mortals until they
+have been a hundred years dead--they want to be sure they are dead and
+their mortal weaknesses forgotten."
+
+Amanda laughed. A moment later they turned from the country road and
+followed a narrower path that was bordered on one side by green fields
+and on the other by a strip of woods, an irregular arm reaching out
+from Amanda's moccasin haunt. The road led up-hill at a sharp angle, so
+that when the traveler reached the top, panting and tired, there
+stretched before him in delightful panorama a view of Lancaster County
+that more than compensated for the discomfort and effort of the climb.
+
+Amanda and Martin stood facing that sight. Behind them lay the cool,
+tree-clad hill, before them the blue August sky looked down on
+Lancaster County farms, whose houses and red barns seemed dropped like
+kindergarten toys into the midst of undulating green fields. One could
+sit or stand under the sheltering shade of the trees along the edge of
+the woods and yet look up to the sky or out upon the Garden Spot and
+farther off, to the blue, hazy mountain ridge that touched the sky-line
+and cut off the view of what lay beyond.
+
+Martin threw the pillows on the ground and they sat down in the cool
+shade.
+
+"Can anything beat this?" he asked lazily as he ruffled the dry
+leaves about him with his hands. "You know, Amanda, I could never
+understand why, with my love for outdoors, I can't be a farmer. When I
+was a boy I used to consider it the natural thing for me to do as my
+father did. I did help him, but I never liked the work. You couldn't
+coax the other boys to the city; they'd rather pitch hay or plant corn.
+And yet I like nothing better than to be out in the open. During the
+summer I'm out in the garden after I come home from the city, and that
+much of working the soil I like, but for a steady job--not for me!"
+
+"It's best to do work one likes," said the girl. "Not every person who
+likes outdoors was meant to be a farmer. Be glad you like to be out in
+the open. But I can't conceive of any person not liking it. I could sit
+and look at the sky for one whole day. It's so encouraging. Sometimes
+when I walk home from school after a hard day and I look down on the
+road and think over the problems of handling certain trying children so
+as to get the best out of them and the latent best in them developed, I
+look up all of a sudden and the sky is so wonderful that, somehow, my
+troubles seem trivial. It's just as though the sky were saying, 'Child,
+you've been looking down so long and worrying about little things that
+you've forgotten that the sky is blue and the clouds are still sailing
+over you.' And, Martin, don't you like the stars? I never get tired of
+looking at them. I never care to gaze at the full moon unless there are
+clouds sailing over her. She's too big and brazen, too compelling. But
+the twinkle of the stars and the sudden flashing out of dim ones you
+didn't see at first always makes me feel like singing. Ever feel that
+way?"
+
+"Yes, but I couldn't put it all into words like that."
+
+"Ah," he thought, "she has the mind of a poet, the heart of a child,
+the soul of a woman."
+
+"I read somewhere," she went on, as though certain of his understanding
+and sharing her mood, "that the Pagans said man was made to stand
+upright so that he might raise his face to heaven and his eyes to the
+stars. Somehow, it seems those old Pagans had a finer conception of
+many vital truths than some of us have in this age."
+
+"That's true. We have them beaten in many ways, but when we come across
+a thing like that we stop to think and wonder where they got it. I
+always did like mythology. Pandora and her box, Clytie and her emblem
+of constancy, and Ulysses--what schoolboy escaped the thrills of
+Ulysses? I bet you pitied Orpheus!"
+
+"I did! But aren't we serious for a picnic? Next thing we know one of
+us will be saying thirdly, fourthly, or amen!"
+
+"I don't know--it suits me. You're so sensible, Amanda, it's a pleasure
+to talk with you. Most girls are so frothy."
+
+"No disparaging remarks about our sex," she said lightly, "or I'll
+retaliate."
+
+"Go on," he challenged, "I dare you to! What's the worst fault in mere
+man?"
+
+She raised her hand in protest. "I wash my hands of that! But I will
+say that if most girls are frothy, as you say, it's because most men
+seem to like them that way. Confess now, how many shallow, frothy girls
+grow into old maids? It's generally the butterfly that occasions the
+merry chase, straw hats out to catch it. You seldom see a straw hat
+after a bee."
+
+"Oh, Amanda, that's not fair, not like you!" But he thought ruefully of
+Isabel and her butterfly attractions. "I admit we follow the
+butterflies but sometimes we wake up and see our folly. True, men don't
+chase honeybees, but they have a wholesome respect for them and build
+houses for them. After all, the real men generally appreciate the real
+women. Sometimes the appreciation comes too late for happiness, but it
+seldom fails to come. No matter how appearances belie it, it's a fact,
+nevertheless, that in this crazy world of to-day the sincere, real girl
+is still appreciated. The frilly Gladys, Gwendolyns and What-nots still
+have to yield first place to the old-fashioned Rebeccas, Marys and
+Amandas."
+
+Her heart thumped at the words. She became flustered and said the first
+thing that came into her head to say, "I like that, calling me old-
+fashioned! But we won't quarrel about it. Let's eat our lunch; that
+will keep us from too much talking for a while."
+
+Martin handed her the box. He was silent as she opened it. She noted
+his preoccupation, his gray eyes looking off to the distant fields.
+
+"Come back to earth!" she ordered. "What are you dreaming about?"
+
+"I was just thinking that you _are_ old-fashioned. I'm glad you
+are."
+
+"Well, I'm not!" she retorted. "Come on, eat. I just threw in some
+rolls and cold chicken and pickles and a few peaches."
+
+The man turned and gave his attention to the lunch and ate with evident
+enjoyment, but several times Amanda felt his keen eyes scrutinizing her
+face. "What ails him?" she thought.
+
+"This is great, this is just the thing!" he told her several times
+during the time of lunch. "Let's do this often, come up here where the
+air is pure."
+
+"All right," she agreed readily. "It will do you good to get up in the
+hills. I don't see how you stand being housed in a city in the summer!
+It must be like those awful days in the early spring or in the fall
+when I'm in the schoolroom and rebel because I want to be outdoors. I
+rebel every minute when the weather is nice, do it subconsciously while
+I'm teaching the states and capitals or hearing tables or giving out
+spelling words. Something just keeps saying inside of me, 'I want to be
+out, want to be out, be out, be out!' It's a wonder I don't say it out
+loud sometimes."
+
+"If you did you'd hear a mighty echo, I bet! Every kid in the room
+would say it after you."
+
+"Yes, I'm sure of that. I feel like a slave driver when I make them
+study on days that were made for the open. But it's the only way, I
+suppose. We have to learn to knuckle very early."
+
+"Yes, but it's a great old world, just the same, don't you think so?"
+
+"It's the only one I ever tried, so I'm satisfied to stay on it a while
+longer," she told him.
+
+They laughed at that as only Youth can laugh at remarks that are not
+clever, only interesting to each other because of the personality of
+the speaker.
+
+So the afternoon passed and the two descended again to the dusty
+country road, each feeling refreshed and stimulated by the hours spent
+together.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+TESTS
+
+
+That September Amanda began her third year of teaching at Crow Hill.
+
+"I declare," Millie said, "how quick the time goes! Here's your third
+year o' teachin' started a'ready. A body gets old fast."
+
+"Yes, I'll soon be an old maid school teacher."
+
+"Now, mebbe not!" The hired girl had lost none of her frankness. "I
+notice that Mart Landis sneaks round here a good bit this while past."
+
+"Ach, Millie, he's not here often."
+
+"No, o' course not! He just stops in in the afternoon about every other
+day with a book or something of excuse like that, and about every other
+day in the morning he's likely to happen to drop in to get the book
+back, and then in between that he comes and you go out for a walk after
+flowers or birds or something, and then between times there he comes
+with something his mom told him to ask or bring or something like that
+--no, o' course not, he don't come often! Not at all! I guess he's just
+neighborly, ain't, Amanda?" Millie chuckled at her own wit and Amanda
+could not long keep a frown upon her face.
+
+"Of course, Millie," she said with an assumed air of indifference, "the
+Landis people have always been neighborly. Pennsylvania Dutch are great
+for that."
+
+It was not from Millie alone that Amanda had to take teasing. Philip,
+always ready for amusement, was at times almost insufferable in the
+opinion of his sister.
+
+"What's the matter with Mart Landis's home?" the boy asked innocently
+one day at the supper table.
+
+"Why?" asked Uncle Amos. "I'll bite."
+
+"Well, he seems to be out of it a great deal; he spends half of his
+time in our house. I think, Uncle Amos, as head of the house here, you
+should ask him what his intentions are."
+
+"Phil!" Amanda's protest was vehement. "You make me as tired as some
+other people round here do. As soon as a man walks down the road with a
+girl the whole matter is settled--they'll surely marry soon! It would
+be nice if people would attend to their own affairs."
+
+"Makes me tired too," said Philip fervently. "Last week I met that
+Sarah from up the road and naturally walked to the car with her. You
+all know what a fright she is--cross-eyed, pigeon-toed, and as
+brilliant mentally as a dark night in the forest. When I got into the
+car I heard some one say, 'Did you see Philip Reist with that girl? I
+wonder if he keeps company with her.' Imagine!"
+
+"Serves you right," Amanda told him with impish delight. "I hope every
+cross-eyed, pigeon-toed girl in the county meets you and walks with
+you!"
+
+"Feel better now, Sis?" His grin brought laughter to the crowd and
+Amanda's peeved feeling was soon gone.
+
+It was true, Martin Landis spent many hours at the Reist farmhouse. He
+seemed filled with an insatiable desire for the companionship of
+Amanda. Scarcely a day passed without some glimpse of him at the Reist
+home.
+
+Just what that companionship meant to the young man he did not stop to
+analyze at first. He knew he was happy with Amanda, enjoyed her
+conversation, felt a bond between them in their love for the vast
+outdoors, but he never went beyond that. Until one day in early
+November when he was walking down the lonely road after a pleasant
+evening with Amanda. He paused once to look up at the stars,
+remembering what the girl had said concerning them, how they comforted
+and inspired her. A sudden rush of feeling came to him as he leaned on
+the rail fence and looked up.... "Look here," he told himself, "it's
+time you take account of yourself. What's all this friendship with your
+old companion leading to? Do you love Amanda?" The "stars in their
+courses" seemed to twinkle her name, every leafless tree along the road
+she loved seemed to murmur it to him--Amanda! It was suddenly the
+sweetest name in the whole world to him!
+
+"Oh, I know it now!" he said softly to himself under the quiet sky. "I
+love her! What a woman she is! What a heart she has, what a heart! I
+want her for my wife; she's the only one I want to have with me 'Till
+death us do part'--that's a fair test. Why, I've been wondering why I
+enjoyed each minute with her and just longed to get to see her as often
+as possible--fool, not to recognize love when it came to me! But I know
+it now! I'm as sure of it as I am sure those stars, her stars, are
+shining up there in the sky."
+
+As he stood a moment silently looking into the starry heavens some
+portion of an old story came to him. "My love is as fair as the stars
+and well-nigh as remote and inaccessible." Could he win the love of a
+girl like Amanda Reist? She gave him her friendship freely, would she
+give her love also? A woman like Amanda could never be satisfied with
+half-gods, she would love as she did everything else--intensely,
+entirely! He remembered reading that propinquity often led people into
+mistakes, that constant companionship was liable to awaken a feeling
+that might masquerade as love. Well, he'd be fair to her, he'd let
+separation prove his love.
+
+"That's just what I'll do," he decided. "Next week I'm to go on my
+vacation and I'll be gone two weeks. I'll not write to her and of
+course I won't see her. Perhaps 'Absence will make the heart grow
+fonder' with her. I hope so! It will be a long two weeks for me, but
+when I come back--" He flung out his arms to the night as though they
+could bring to him at once the form of the one he loved.
+
+So it happened that after a very commonplace goodbye given to Amanda in
+the presence of the entire Reist household Martin Landis left Lancaster
+County a few weeks before Thanksgiving and journeyed to South Carolina
+to spend a quiet vacation at a mountain resort.
+
+To Amanda Reist, pegging away in the schoolroom during the gray
+November days, his absence caused depression. He had said nothing about
+letters but she naturally expected them, friendly little notes to tell
+her what he was doing and how he was enjoying the glories of the famous
+mountains of the south. But no letters came from Martin.
+
+"Oh," she bit her lip after a week had gone and he was still silent. "I
+won't care! He writes home; the children tell me he says the scenery is
+so wonderful where he is--why can't he send me just one little note?
+But I'm not going to care. I've been a fool long enough. I should know
+by this time that it's a case of 'Out of sight, out of mind.' I'm about
+done with castles in Spain! All my sentimental dreams about my knight,
+all my rosy visions are, after all, of that substance of which all
+dreams are made. I suppose if I had been practical and sensible like
+other girls I could have made myself like Lyman Mertzheimer or some
+other ordinary country boy and settled down into a contented woman on a
+farm. Why couldn't I long ago have put away my girlish illusions about
+knights and castles in Spain? I wonder if, after all, gold eagles are
+better and more to be desired than the golden roofs of our dream
+castles? If an automobile like Lyman Mertzheimer drives is not to be
+preferred to Sir Galahad's pure white steed! I've clung to my
+romanticism and what has it brought me? It might have been wiser to let
+go my dreams, sweep the illusions from my eyes and settle down to a
+sordid, everyday existence as the wife of some man, like Lyman
+Mertzheimer, who has no eye for the beauties of nature but who has two
+eyes for me."
+
+Poor Amanda, destruction of her dream castles was perilously imminent!
+The golden turrets were tottering and the substance of which her dreams
+were made was becoming less ethereal. If Lyman Mertzheimer came to her
+then and renewed his suit would she give him a more encouraging answer
+than those she had given in former times? Amanda's hour of weakness and
+despair was upon her. It was a propitious moment for the awakening of
+the forces of her lower nature which lay quiescent in her, as it dwells
+in us all--very few escape the Jekyll-Hyde combination.
+
+When Martin Landis returned to Lancaster County he had a vagrant idea
+of what the South Carolina mountains are like. He would have told you
+that the trees there all murmur the name of Amanda, that the birds sing
+her name, the waterfalls cry it aloud! During his two weeks of absence
+from her his conviction was affirmed--he knew without a shadow of doubt
+that he loved her madly. All of Mrs. Browning's tests he had applied--
+
+  "Unless you can muse in a crowd all day,
+    On the absent face that fixed you;
+  Unless you can love, as the angels may,
+    With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;
+  Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,
+    Through behoving and unbehoving;
+  Unless you can die when the dream is past--
+   Oh, never call it loving!"
+
+Amanda was enthroned in his heart, he knew it at last! How blind he had
+been! He knew now what his mother had meant one day when she told him,
+"Some of you men are blinder'n bats! Bats do see at night!"
+
+As he rode from Lancaster on the little crowded trolley his thoughts
+were all of Amanda--would she give him the answer he desired? Could he
+waken in her heart something stronger than the old feeling of
+friendship, which was not now enough?
+
+He stepped from the car--now he would be with her soon. He meant to
+stop in at the Reist farmhouse and ask her the great question. He could
+wait no longer.
+
+"Hello, Landis," a voice greeted him as he alighted from the car. He
+turned and faced Lyman Mertzheimer, a smiling, visibly happy Lyman.
+
+"Oh, hello," Martin said, not cordially, for he had no love for the
+trouble-maker. "I see you're in Lancaster County for your vacation
+again."
+
+"Yes, home from college for Thanksgiving. I hear you've been away for
+several weeks."
+
+The college boy fell into step beside Martin, who would have turned and
+gone in another direction if he had not been so eager to see Amanda.
+
+"Yes, Landis," continued the unwelcome companion. "I'm home for
+Thanksgiving. It'll be a great day for me this year. By the way, I saw
+Amanda Reist a number of times since I'm here. Perhaps you'll be
+interested to know that Amanda's promised to marry me--congratulate
+me!"
+
+"To marry you! Amanda?" Martin's face blanched and his heart seemed
+turned to lead.
+
+"Why not?" The other laughed softly. "I'm not as black as I'm painted,
+you know."
+
+"I--I hope not," Martin managed to say, his body suddenly seeming to be
+rooted in the ground. His feet dragged as he walked along. Amanda to
+marry Lvman Mertzheimer! What a crazy world it was all of a sudden.
+What a slow, poky idiot he had been not to try for the prize before it
+was snatched from him!
+
+Lyman, rejoicing over the misery so plainly written in the face of
+Martin, walked boldly down the middle of the road, while Martin's feet
+lagged so he could not keep pace with the man who had imparted the
+bewildering news. Martin kept along the side of the road, scuffing
+along in the grass, thinking bitter thoughts about the arrogant youth
+who walked in the middle of the road. The honk, honk of a speeding
+automobile fell heedlessly upon the ears of both, till Martin looked
+back in sudden alarm. His startled eyes saw a car tearing down the road
+like a huge demon on wheels, its driver evidently trusting to the
+common sense of the man in the way to get out of the path of danger in
+time. But Lyman walked on in serene preoccupation, gloating over the
+unlucky, unhappy man who was following. With a cry of warning Martin
+rushed to the side of the other man and pushed him from the path of the
+car, but when the big machine came to a standstill Martin Landis lay in
+the dusty road, his eyes closed, a thin red stream of blood trickling
+down his face.
+
+The driver was concerned. "He's knocked out," he said as he bent over
+the still form. "I'm a doctor and I'll take him home and fix him up.
+He's a plucky chap, all right! He kept you from cashing in, probably.
+Say, young fellow, are you deaf? I honked loud enough to be heard a
+mile. Only for him you'd be in the dust there and you'd have caught it
+full. The car just grazed him. It's merely a scalp wound," he said in
+relief as he examined the prostrate figure. "Know where he lives?"
+
+"Yes, just a little distance beyond the schoolhouse down this road."
+
+"Good. I'll take him home. I can't say how sorry I am it happened. Give
+me a lift, will you? You sit in the back seat and hold him while I
+drive."
+
+Lyman did not relish the task assigned to him but the doctor's tones
+admitted of no refusal. Martin Landis was taken to his home and in his
+semiconscious condition he did not know that his head with its
+handkerchief binding leaned against the rascally breast of Lyman
+Mertzheimer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+"YOU SAVED THE WRONG ONE"
+
+
+The news of the accident soon reached the Reist farmhouse. Amanda
+telephoned her sympathy to Mrs. Landis and asked if there was anything
+she could do.
+
+"Oh, Amanda," came the reply, "I do wish you'd come over! You're such a
+comforting person to have around. Did you hear that it was Lyman
+Mertzheimer helped to bring him home? Lyman said he and Martin were
+walkin' along the road and were so busy talkin' that neither heard the
+car and it knocked Martin down. It beats me what them two could have to
+talk about so much in earnest that they wouldn't hear the automobile.
+But perhaps Lyman wanted to make up with Martin for all the mean tricks
+he done to him a'ready. Anyhow, we're glad it ain't worse. He's got a
+cut on the head and is pretty much bruised. He'll be stiff for a while
+but there ain't no bones broke."
+
+"I'm so glad it isn't worse."
+
+"Yes, ain't, abody still has something to be thankful for? Then you'll
+come on over, Amanda?"
+
+"Yes, I'll be over."
+
+As the girl walked down the road she felt a strange mingling of
+emotions. She couldn't refuse the plea of Mrs. Landis, but one thing
+was certain--she wouldn't see Martin! He'd be up-stairs and she could
+stay down. Perhaps she could help with the work in the kitchen--
+anything but see Martin!
+
+Mrs. Landis was excited as she drew her visitor into the warm kitchen,
+but the excitement was mingled with wrath. "What d'you think, Amanda,"
+she exclaimed, "our Mart---"
+
+"Yes, our Mart---" piped out one of the smaller children, but an older
+one chided him, "Now you hush, and let Mom tell about it."
+
+"That Lyman Mertzheimer," said Mrs. Landis indignantly, "abody can't
+trust at all! He let me believe that he and Martin was walkin' along
+friendly like and that's how Mart got hurt. But here after Lyman left
+and the doctor had Mart all fixed up and was goin' he told me that
+Martin was in the side of the road and wouldn't got hurt at all if he
+hadn't run to the middle to pull Lyman back. He saved that mean
+fellow's life and gets no thanks for it from him! After all Lyman's
+dirty tricks this takes the cake!"
+
+Amanda's eyes sparkled. "He--I think Martin's wonderful!" she said, her
+lips trembling.
+
+"Yes," the mother agreed as she wiped her eyes with one corner of her
+gingham apron. "I'd rather my boy laid up in bed hurt like he is than
+have him like Lyman."
+
+"Oh, Mom," little Emma came running into the room, "I looked in at Mart
+and he's awake. Mebbe he wants somebody to talk to him like I did when
+I had the measles. Dare I go set with him a little if I keep quiet?"
+
+"Why," said Mrs. Landis, "that would be a nice job for Amanda. You go
+up," she addressed the girl, "and stay a little with him. He'll
+appreciate your comin' to see him."
+
+Amanda's heart galloped. Her whole being was a mass of contradictions.
+One second she longed to fly up the steps to where the plumed knight of
+her girlish dreams lay, the next she wanted to flee down the country
+road away from him.
+
+She stood a moment, undecided, but Mrs. Landis had taken her compliance
+for granted and was already busy with some of her work in the kitchen.
+At length Amanda turned to the stairs, followed by several eager,
+excited children.
+
+"Here," called the mother, "Charlie, Emma, you just leave Amanda go up
+alone. It ain't good for Mart to have so much company at once. I'll
+leave you go up to-night." They turned reluctantly and the girl started
+up the stairs alone, some power seeming to urge her on against her
+will.
+
+Martin Landis returned to consciousness through a shroud of enveloping
+shadows. What had happened? Why was a strange man winding bandages
+round his head? He raised an arm--it felt heavy. Then his mother's
+voice fell soothingly upon his ears, "You're all right, Martin."
+
+"Yes, you're all right," repeated the doctor, "but that other fellow
+should have the bumps you got."
+
+"That other fellow"--Martin thought hazily, then he remembered. The
+whole incident came back to him, etched upon his memory. How he had
+started from the car, eager to get to Amanda, then Lyman had come with
+his news of her engagement and the hope in his heart became stark.
+Where was her blue bunting with its eternal song? Ah, he had killed it
+with his indifference and caution and foolish blindness! He knew he
+stumbled along the road, grief and misery playing upon his heart
+strings. Then came the frantic honk of the car and Lyman in its path.
+Good enough for him, was the first thought of the Adam in Martin. The
+next second he had obeyed some powerful impulse and rushed to the help
+of the heedless Lyman. Then blackness and oblivion had come upon him.
+Blessed oblivion, he thought, as the details of the occurrence returned
+to him. He groaned.
+
+"Hurt you?" asked the doctor kindly.
+
+"No. I'm all right." He smiled between his bandages. "I think I can
+rest comfortably now, thank you."
+
+He was grateful they left him alone then, he wanted to think. Countless
+thoughts were racing through his tortured brain. How could Amanda marry
+Lyman Mertzheimer? Did she love him? Would he make her happy? Why had
+he, Martin, been so blind? What did life hold for him if Amanda went
+out of it? The thoughts were maddening and after a while a merciful
+Providence turned them away from him and he fell to dreaming tenderly
+of the girl, the Amanda of his boyhood, the gay, laughing comrade of
+his walks in the woods. Tender, understanding Amanda of his hours of
+unhappiness--Amanda--the vision of her danced before his eyes and
+lingered by his side--Amanda---
+
+"Martin"--the voice of her broke in upon his dreaming! She stood in the
+doorway and he wondered if that, too, was a part of his dream.
+
+"Martin," she said again, a little timidly. Then she came into the
+room, a familiar little figure in her brown suit and little brown hat
+pulled over her red hair.
+
+"Oh, hello," he answered, "come in if you care to."
+
+"I _am_ in." She laughed nervously, a strange way for her to be
+laughing, but the man did not take heed of it. Had she come to laugh at
+him for being a fool? he thought.
+
+"Sit down," he invited coolly. She sat on the chair by his bed, her
+coat buttoned and unbuttoned by her restless fingers as she stole
+glances at the bandaged head of the man.
+
+"It's good of you to come," he began. At that she turned and began to
+speak rapidly.
+
+"Martin, I must tell you! You must let me tell you! I know what you
+did, how you saved Lyman. I think it was wonderful of you, just
+wonderful!"
+
+"Ach." He turned his flushed face toward her then. "There's noticing
+wonderful about that."
+
+"I think there is," she insisted, scarcely knowing what to say. She
+remembered his old aversion to being lionized.
+
+"Tell me why you did it," she asked suddenly. She had to say something!
+
+The man lay silent for a moment, then a rush of emotion, struggling for
+expression, swayed him and he spoke, while his eyes were turned
+resolutely from her.
+
+"I'll tell you, Amanda! I've been a fool not to recognize the fact long
+ago that I love you."
+
+"Oh!" There was a quick cry from the girl. But the man went on,
+impelled by the pain of losing her.
+
+"I see now that I have always loved you, even while I was infatuated by
+the other girl. You were still you, right there when I needed you,
+ready to give your comfort and help. I must have loved you in the days
+we ran barefooted down the hills and looked for flowers or birds. I've
+been asleep, blind--call it what you will! Perhaps I could have taught
+you to love me if I had read my own heart in time. I took so much for
+granted, that you'd always be right there for me--now I've found out
+the truth too late. Lyman told me--I hope he'll make you happy. Perhaps
+you better go now. I'm tired."
+
+[Illustration: "What did Lyman tell you? I must know"]
+
+But the request fell on deaf ears.
+
+"Lyman told you--just what did he tell you?" she asked.
+
+"Oh," the man groaned. "There's a limit to human endurance. I wish
+you'd go, dear, and leave me alone for a while."
+
+"What did Lyman tell you?" she asked again. "I must know."
+
+"What's the use of threshing it over? It brings neither of us
+happiness. Of course he told me about the engagement, that you are
+going to marry him."
+
+"Oh!" Another little cry, not of joy this time, of anger, rather. There
+was silence then for a space, while the man turned his face to the wall
+and the girl tried to still the beating of her heart and control
+herself sufficiently to be able to speak.
+
+"Then, Martin," she whispered, "you saved Lyman for me, because you
+thought I loved him?"
+
+He lifted a protesting hand as if pleading for silence.
+
+She went on haltingly, "Why, Martin, you saved the wrong one!"
+
+He raised his head from the pillow then; a strangling sound came from
+his lips.
+
+The girl's face burned with blushes but her eyes looked fearlessly into
+his as she said again, "You saved the wrong one. Why, Martin--Martin--
+if you wanted to save the man I love--you--you should have saved
+yourself!"
+
+He read the truth in her eyes; his arms reached out for her then and
+her lips moved to his as steel to a magnet.
+
+When he spoke she marveled at the tenderness in his voice; she never
+dreamed, even in her brightest romantic dreams, that a man's voice
+could hold so much tenderness. "Amanda, I began to read my own heart
+that day you found me in the woods and helped and comforted me."
+
+"Oh, Martin," she pressed her lips upon his bandaged head, her eyes
+were glowing with that "light that never was on land or sea"--"Oh,
+Martin, I've loved _you_ ever since that day you saved my life by
+throwing me into the bean-patch and then kissed my burnt hand."
+
+"Not your hand this time, sweetheart," he whispered, "your lips!"
+
+"I'm glad," Amanda said after they had told each other the old, old
+story, "I'm so glad I kept my castles in Spain. When you went away and
+didn't write I almost wrecked them purposely. I thought they'd go
+tumbling into ashes but somehow I braced them up again. Now they're
+more beautiful than ever. I pity the people who own no castles in
+Spain, who have no dreams that won't come true exactly as they dreamed.
+I'll hold on to my dreams even if I know they can never come true
+exactly as I dream them. I wouldn't give up my castles in Spain. I'll
+have them till I die. But, Martin, that automobile might have killed
+you!"
+
+"Nonsense. I'm just scratched a bit. I'll be out of this in no time."
+
+"That rascal of a Lyman--you thought I could marry him?"
+
+"I couldn't believe it, yet he said so. Some liar, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes, but not quite so black as you thought. He is going to marry a
+girl named Amanda, one from his college town, and they are going to
+live in California."
+
+"Good riddance!"
+
+"Yes. The engagement was announced last week while you were away. He
+knew you had probably not heard of it and saw a chance to make you
+jealous."
+
+"I'd like to wring his neck," said Martin, grinning. "But since it
+turned out like this for me I'll forgive him. I don't care how many
+Amandas he marries if he leaves me mine."
+
+At that point little Charlie, tiptoeing to the open door of Martin's
+room, saw something which caused him to widen his eyes, clap a hand
+over his mouth to smother an exclamation, and turn quickly down the
+stairs.
+
+"Jiminy pats, Mom!" he cried excitedly as he entered the kitchen, "our
+Mart's holdin' Amanda's hand and she's kissin' him on the face! I seen
+it and heard it! Jiminy pats!"
+
+The small boy wondered what ailed his mother, why she was not properly
+shocked. Why did she gather him into her arms and whisper something
+that sounded exactly like, "Thank God!"
+
+"It's all right," she told him. "You mustn't tell; that's their
+secret."
+
+"Oh, is it all right? Then I won't tell. Mart says I can keep a secret
+good."
+
+But Martin and Amanda decided to take the mother into the happy secret.
+"Look at my face," the girl said. "I can't hide my happiness. We might
+as well tell it."
+
+"Mother!" Martin's voice rang through the house. At the sound a happy,
+white-capped woman wiped her eyes again on the corner of her gingham
+apron and mounted the stairs to give her blessing to her boy and the
+girl who had crowned him with her woman's love.
+
+The announcement of the troth was received with gladness at the Reist
+farmhouse. Mrs. Reist was happy in her daughter's joy and lived again
+in memory that hour when the same miracle had been wrought for her.
+
+"Say," asked Philip, "I hope you two don't think you're springing a
+surprise? A person blind in one eye and not seeing out of the other
+could see which way the wind was blowing."
+
+"Oh, Phil!" Amanda replied, but there was only love in her voice.
+
+"It must be nice to be so happy like you are," said Millie.
+
+"Yes, it must be," Uncle Amos nodded his head in affirmation. He looked
+at the hired girl, who did not appear to notice him. "I just wish I was
+twenty years younger," he added.
+
+A week later Amanda and Martin were sitting in one of the big rooms of
+the Reist farmhouse. Through the open door came the sound of Millie and
+Mrs. Reist in conversation, with an occasional deeper note in Uncle
+Amos's slow, contented voice.
+
+"Do you know," said Martin, "I was never much of a hand to remember
+poetry, but there's one verse I read at school that keeps coming to me
+since I know you are going to marry me. That verse about
+
+  'A perfect woman, nobly planned
+    To warn, to comfort, and command.'"
+
+"Oh, no, Martin! You put me on a pedestal, and that's a tottering bit
+of architecture."
+
+"Not on a pedestal," he contradicted, "but right by my side, walking
+together, that's the way we want to go."
+
+"That's the only way. It's the way my parents went and the way yours
+are still going." She rose and brought to him a little book. "Read
+Riley's 'Song of the Road,'" she told him.
+
+He opened the book and read the musical verses:
+
+  "'O I will walk with you, my lad, whichever way you fare,
+  You'll have me, too, the side o' you, with heart as light as air.
+  No care for where the road you take's a-leadin'--anywhere,--
+  It can but be a joyful ja'nt the whilst _you_ journey there.
+  The road you take's the path o' love, an' that's the bridth o' two--
+  An' I will walk with you, my lad--O I will walk with you.'
+
+"Why," he exclaimed, "that's beautiful! Riley knew how to put into
+words the things we all feel but can't express. Let's read the rest."
+
+Her voice blended with his and out in the adjoining room Millie heard
+and listened. Silently the hired girl walked to the open door. She
+watched the two heads bending over the little book. Her heart ached for
+the happy childhood and the romance she had missed. The closing words
+of the poem came distinctly to her;
+
+  "'Sure, I will walk with you, my lad,
+    As love ordains me to,--
+  To Heaven's door, and through, my lad,
+    O I will walk with you.'"
+
+"Say," she startled the lovers by her remark, "if that ain't the
+prettiest piece I ever heard!"
+
+"Think so?" said Martin kindly. "I agree with you."
+
+"Yes, it sounds nice but the meanin' is what abody likes."
+
+The hired girl went back to her place in the other room. But Amanda
+turned to the man beside her and said, "Romance in the heart of Millie!
+Who would guess it?"
+
+"There's romance everywhere," Martin told her. "Millie's heart wouldn't
+be the fine big thing it is if she didn't keep a space there for love
+and romance."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE HEART OF MILLIE
+
+
+The Reist farmhouse, always a busy place, was soon rivaling the
+proverbial beehive. Mrs. Reist, to whom sentiment was ever a vital,
+holy thing, to be treasured and clung to throughout the years, had long
+ago, in Amanda's childhood, begun the preparation for the time of the
+girl's marriage. After the fashion of olden times the mother had begun
+the filling of a Hope Chest for her girl. Just as she instilled into
+the youthful mind the homely old-fashioned virtues of honesty,
+truthfulness and reverence for holy things which made Amanda, as she
+stood on the threshold of a new life, so richly dowered in spiritual
+and moral acquisitions, so had the mother laid away in the big wooden
+chest fine linens, useful and beautiful and symbolic of the worth of
+the bride whose home they were destined to enrich.
+
+But in addition to the precious contents of the Hope Chest many things
+were needed for the dowry of the daughter of a prosperous Lancaster
+County family. So the evenings and Saturdays of that year became busy
+ones for Amanda. Millie helped with much of the plainer sewing and Mrs.
+Reist's exquisite tiny stitches enhanced many of the garments.
+
+"Poor Aunt Rebecca," Amanda said one day, "how we miss her now!"
+
+"Yes, ain't?" agreed Millie. "For all her scoldin' she was a good help
+still. If she was livin' yet she'd fuss about all the sewin' you're
+doin' to get married but she'd pitch right in and help do it."
+
+Philip offered to pull basting threads, but his generosity was not
+appreciated. "Go on," Millie told him, "you'd be more bother than
+you're worth! Next you'd be pullin' out the sewin'!" He was frequently
+chased from the room because of his inappropriate remarks concerning
+the trousseau or his declaration that Amanda was spending all the
+family wealth by her reckless substitution of silk for muslin.
+
+"You keep quiet," Millie often reproved him. "I guess Amanda dare have
+what she wants if your mom says so. If she wants them things she calls
+cammysoles made out of silk let her have 'em. She's gettin' married
+only once."
+
+"How do you know?" he asked teasingly. "Say, Millie, I thought a
+camisole is a dish you make rice pudding in."
+
+"Ach, that shows you don't know everything yet, even if you do go to
+Lancaster to school!" And he was driven from the room in laughing
+defeat.
+
+It is usually conceded that to the prospective bride belongs the
+privilege of naming the day of her marriage, but it seemed to Amanda
+that Millie and Philip had as much to do with it as she. Each one had a
+favorite month. Phil's suggestion finally decided the month. "Sis,
+you're so keen about flowers, why don't you make it a spring wedding?
+About cherry blossom time would be the thing."
+
+"So it would. We could have it in the orchard."
+
+"On a nice rainy day in May," he said.
+
+"Pessimist! It doesn't rain every day in May!"
+
+There followed happy, excited times when the matter of a house was
+discussed. Those were wonderful hours in which the two hunted a nest
+that would be near enough to the city for Martin's daily commuting and
+yet have so much of the country about it as to boast of green grass and
+space for flowers. It was found at length, a little new bungalow
+outside the city limits in a residential section where gardens and
+trees beautified the entire street.
+
+"Do you know," Mrs. Reist said to Uncle Amos one day, "there's another
+little house for sale in that street. If it wasn't for breakin' up the
+home for you and Millie I'd buy it and Philip and I could move in
+there. It would be nice and handy for him. I'm gettin' tired of such a
+big house. There I could do the work myself. There'd be room for you to
+come with us, but I wouldn't need Millie. I don't like to send her off
+to some other people. We had her so long a'ready, and she's a good,
+faithful worker. Ach, I guess I'll have to give up thinkin' about doin'
+anything like that."
+
+"Well, well, now let me think once." Uncle Amos scratched his head.
+Then an inscrutable smile touched his lips. "Well, now," he said after
+a moment's meditation, "now I don't see why it can't be arranged some
+way. There's more'n one way sometimes to do things. I don't know--I
+don't know--but I think I can see a way we could manage that--
+providin'--ach, we'll just wait once, mebbe it'll come out right."
+
+Mrs. Reist looked at her brother. What did he mean? He stammered and
+smiled like a foolish schoolboy. Poor Amos, she thought, how hard he
+had worked all his life and how little pleasure he had seemed to get
+out of his days! He was growing old, too, and would soon be unable to
+do the work on a big farm.
+
+But Uncle Amos seemed spry enough several days later when he and Millie
+entered the big market wagon to go to Lancaster with the farm products.
+They left the Reist farmhouse early in the morning, a cold, gray winter
+day.
+
+"Say, Millie," he said soon after they began the drive, "I want to talk
+with you."
+
+"Well," she answered dryly, "what's to keep you from doin' so? Here I
+am. Go on."
+
+"Ach, Millie, now don't get obstreperous! Manda's mom would like to
+sell the farm and move to Lancaster to a little house. Then she
+wouldn't need me nor you."
+
+"What? Are you sure, Amos?"
+
+"Sure! She told me herself. That would leave us out a home. For I don't
+want to live in no city and set down evenings and look at houses or
+trolley cars. You can hire out to some other people, of course."
+
+"Oh, yea! Amos. What in the world--I don't want to live no place else."
+
+"Well, now, wait once, Millie. I got a plan all fixed up, something I
+wished long a'ready I could do, only I hated to bust up the farm for my
+sister. Millie--ach, don't you know what I mean? Let's me and you get
+married!"
+
+Millie drew her heavy blanket shawl closer around her and pulled her
+black woolen cap farther over her forehead, then she turned and looked
+at Amos, but his face was in shadow; the feeble oil lamp of the market
+wagon sent scant light inside.
+
+"Now, Amos, you say that just because you take pity for me and want to
+fix a home for me, ain't?"
+
+"Ach, yammer, no!" came the vehement reply. "I liked you long a'ready,
+Millie, and used to think still, 'There's a girl I'd like to marry!'"
+
+"Why, Amos," came the happy answer, "and I liked you, too, long
+a'ready! I used to think still to myself, 'I don't guess I'll ever get
+married but if I do I'd like a man like Amos.'"
+
+Then Uncle Amos suddenly demonstrated his skill at driving one-handed
+and something more than the blanket-shawl was around Millie's
+shoulders.
+
+"Ach, my," she said after a while, "to think of it--me, a hired girl,
+to get a nice, good man like you for husband!"
+
+"And me, a fat dopple of a farmer to get a girl like you! I'll be good
+to you, Millie, honest! You just see once if I won't! You needn't work
+so hard no more. I'll buy the farm off my sister and we'll sell some of
+the land and stop this goin' to market. It's too hard work. We can take
+it easier; we're both gettin' old, ain't, Millie?" He leaned over and
+kissed her again.
+
+"You know," he said blissfully, "I used to think still this here
+kissin' business is all soft mush, but--why--I think it's all right.
+Don't you?"
+
+"Ach," she laughed as she pushed his face away gently. "They say still
+there ain't no fools like old ones. I guess we're some."
+
+"All right, we don't care, long as we like it. Here," he spoke to the
+horse, "giddap with you! Abody'd think you was restin' 'stead of goin'
+to market. We'll be late for sure this morning." His mittened hands
+flapped the reins and the horse quickened his steps.
+
+"Ha, ha," the man laughed, "I know what ails old Bill! The kissin'
+scared him. He never heard none before in this market wagon. No wonder
+he stands still. Here's another for good measure."
+
+"Ach, Amos, I think that's often enough now! Anyhow for this morning
+once."
+
+"Ha, ha," he laughed. "Millie, you're all right! That's what you are!"
+
+That evening at supper Philip asked suddenly, "What ails you two, Uncle
+Amos, you and Millie? I see you grin every time you look at each
+other."
+
+"Well, nothin' ails me except a bad case of love that's been stickin'
+in me this long while and now it's broke out. Millie's caught it too."
+
+"Well, I declare!" Amanda was quick to detect his meaning. "You two
+darlings! I'm so glad!"
+
+"Ach," the hired girl said, blushing rosy, "don't go make so much fuss
+about it. Ain't we old enough to get married?"
+
+"I'm glad, Millie," Mrs. Reist told her. "Amos just needs a wife like
+you. He worried me long a'ready, goin' on all alone. Now I know he'll
+have some one to look out for him."
+
+"Finis! You're done for!" Phil said. "Lay down your arms and surrender.
+But say, that makes it bully for Mother and me. We can move to
+Lancaster now. May we run out to the farm and visit you, Millie?"
+
+"Me? Don't ask me. It's Amos's."
+
+"Millie, you goose," the man said happily, "when you marry me
+everything I have will be yours, too."
+
+"Well, did I ever! I don't believe I'll know how to think about it that
+way. This nice big house won't seem like part mine."
+
+"It'll be _ours_" Uncle Amos said, smiling at the word.
+
+And so it happened that the preparation of another wedding outfit was
+begun in the Reist farmhouse.
+
+"I don't need fancy things like Amanda," declared the hired girl. "I
+wear the old style o' clothes yet. And for top things, why, I made up
+my mind I'm goin' to wear myself plain and be a Mennonite."
+
+"Plain," said Mrs. Reist. "Won't Amos be glad! He likes you no matter
+what clothes you wear, but it's so much nicer when you can both go to
+the same church. He'll be glad if you turn a Mennonite."
+
+"Well, I'm goin' to be one. So I won't want much for my weddin' in
+clothes, just some plain suits and bonnets and shawl. But I got no
+chest ready like Amanda has. I never thought I'd need a Hope Chest.
+When I was little I got knocked around, but as soon as I could earn
+money I saved a little all the time and now I got a pretty good bit
+laid in the bank. I can take that and get me some things I need."
+
+Mrs. Reist laid her hands on the shoulders of the faithful hired girl.
+"Never mind, Millie, you'll have your chest! We'll go to Lancaster and
+buy what you want. Amos got his share of our mother's things when we
+divided them and he has a big chest on the garret all filled with
+homespun linen and quilts and things that you can use. That will all be
+yours."
+
+"Mine? I can't hardly believe it. You couldn't be nicer to me if you
+was my own mom. And I ain't forgettin' it neither! I said to Amos we
+won't get married till after Amanda and when you and Phil are all fixed
+in your new house. Then we'll go to the preacher and get it done. We
+don't want no fuss, just so we get married, that's all we want. It
+needn't be done fancy."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+"ONE HEART MADE O' TWO"
+
+
+Amanda married Martin that May, when the cherry blossoms transformed
+the orchard into a sea of white.
+
+To the rear of the farmhouse stood a plot of ground planted with cherry
+trees. Low grass under the trees and little paths worn into it led like
+aisles up and down. There, near the centre of the plot, Amanda and
+Martin chose the place for the ceremony. The march to and from that
+spot would lead through a white-arched aisle sweet with the breath of
+thousands of cherry blossoms.
+
+Amanda selected for her wedding a dress of white silk. "I do want a
+wedding dress I can pack away in an old box on the attic and keep for
+fifty years and take out and look at when it's yellow and old," she
+said, romance still burning in her heart.
+
+"Uh," said practical Millie. "Why, there ain't no attic in that house
+you're goin' to! Them bungalows ain't the kind I like. I like a real
+house."
+
+"Well, there's no garret like ours, but there is a little raftered room
+with a slanting ceiling and little windows and I intend to put trunks
+and boxes in it and take my spinning-wheel that Granny gave me and put
+it there."
+
+"A spinning-wheel! What under the sun will you do with that?"
+
+"Look at it," was the strange reply, at which Millie shook her head and
+went off to her work.
+
+"Are you going to carry flowers, and have a real wedding?" Philip asked
+his sister the day before the wedding.
+
+"I don't need any, with the whole outdoors a mass of bloom. If the pink
+moccasins were blooming I'd carry some."
+
+"Pink--with your red hair!" The boy exercised his brotherly prerogative
+of frankness.
+
+"Yes, pink! Whose wedding is this? I'd carry pink moccasins and wear my
+red hair if they--if the two curdled! But I'll have to find some other
+wild flowers."
+
+He laughed. "Then I'll help you pick them."
+
+"Martin and I are going for them, thanks."
+
+"Oh, don't mention it! I wouldn't spoil that party!" He began whistling
+his old greeting whistle. He had forgotten it for several years but
+some chord of memory flashed it back to him at that moment.
+
+At the sound of the old melody Amanda stepped closer to the boy.
+"Phil," she said tenderly, "you make me awful mad sometimes but I like
+you a lot. I hope you'll be as happy as I am some day."
+
+"Ah," he blinked, half ashamed of any outward show of emotion. "You're
+all right, Sis. When I find a girl like you I'll do the wedding ring
+stunt, too. Now, since we've thrown bouquets at each other let's get to
+work. What may I do if I'm debarred from the flower hunt?"
+
+"Go ask Millie."
+
+"Gee, Sis, have a heart! She's been love struck, too. Regular epidemic
+at Reists'!" But he went off to offer his services to the hired girl.
+
+As Amanda dressed in her white silk gown she wished she were beautiful.
+"Every girl ought to have beauty once in her life," she thought. "Even
+for just one hour on her wedding day it would be a boon. But then, love
+is supposed to be blind, so perhaps Martin will think I am beautiful
+to-day."
+
+She was not beautiful, but her eyes shone soft and her face was
+expressive of the joy in her heart as she stood ready for the ceremony
+which was the consummation of her love for the knight of her girlhood's
+dreams.
+
+It would be impossible to find a more beautiful setting for a wedding
+than the Reist cherry orchard that May day. There were rows of trees,
+with their fresh young green and their canopies of lacy bloom through
+which the warm May sunshine trickled like gold. As Amanda and Martin
+stood before the waiting clergyman and in the presence of relatives,
+friends and neighbors, faint breezes stirred the branches and fugitive
+little petals loosened from the hearts of the blossoms and fell upon
+the happy people gathered under the white glory of the orchard.
+
+Several robins with nests already built on broad crotches of the cherry
+trees hovered about, their black eyes peering questioningly down at the
+unwonted visitors to the place. Once during the marriage service a
+Baltimore oriole flashed into a tree near by, his golden plumage made
+more intense against the white blossoms. With proud assurance he
+demonstrated his appreciation of the orchard and perched fearlessly on
+an outer bough while he whistled his insistent, imperious, "Here, here,
+come here!"
+
+As the words, "Until death do us part"--the old, inadequate mortal
+expression for love that is deathless--sounded in that white-arched
+temple Amanda thought of Riley's "Song of the Road" and its
+
+  "To Heaven's door, and _through_, my lad,
+  O I will walk with you."
+
+After the ceremony the strains of a Wedding March fell upon the ears of
+the people gathered in the orchard.
+
+Amanda's lips parted in pleasure. "That's Phil's work!" she cried and
+ran behind the clump of bushes from where the music seemed to come.
+Philip was stooping to grind the motor of Landis's Victrola.
+
+"Phil, you dear!"
+
+"Aren't I though!" he said frivolously. "I had the heck of a time
+getting this thing here while you were dressing and keeping it hidden.
+I had to bribe little Charlie twice to keep him from telling you. He
+was so sure you'd want to know all about it."
+
+"It's just the last touch we needed to make this perfect."
+
+"Leave it to your devoted brother. Now go back and receive the best
+wishes or congratulations or whatever it is they give the bride."
+
+Later there was supper out under the trees. A supper at which Millie,
+trim in her new gray Mennonite garb and white cap, was able to show her
+affection for the bride, but at which the bride was so riotously happy
+that she scarcely knew what she was eating.
+
+Of course there was a real bride's cake with white icing. Amanda had to
+cut it and hand out pieces for the young people to dream upon.
+
+After a while the bride slipped away, took off her white dress and put
+on a dark suit. Then she and Martin dodged rice and were whirled away
+in a big automobile.
+
+The other members of the household had much to occupy their hands for
+the next hour, setting things to rights, as Millie said, the while
+their hearts and thoughts were speeding after the two who had smiled
+and looked as though no other mortals had ever known such love.
+
+When the place was once more in order and the Landis family, the last
+guests, had gone off in the darkness, the children flinging back loud
+good-nights, Mrs. Reist, Philip, Millie and Uncle Amos sat alone on the
+porch and talked things over.
+
+"It was some wedding, Mother," was the opinion of the boy.
+
+"Yes." "Prettiest thing I ever seen," said the hired girl.
+
+"Yes, so it was," Uncle Amos agreed. "But say, Millie, it's dandy and
+moonlight. What d'you say to a little walk down the road? Or are you
+too tired?"
+
+"Ach, I'm not tired." And the two went off in the soft spring night for
+a stroll along the lane, Millie in her gray Mennonite dress, Uncle Amos
+in his plain suit of the faith. The two on the porch saw her homely
+face transfigured by a smile as she looked up into the countenance of
+the man who had brought romance into her life, then they saw Uncle Amos
+draw the hand of Millie through his arm and in that fashion they walked
+along in the moonlight, the man, contented and happy, holding the hand
+of the woman warmly in his grasp. To them, no less than to the youthful
+lovers, was given the promise of happiness and in their hearts was
+ringing Amanda's and Martin's pledge:
+
+  "Sure, I will walk with you, my lad,
+    As love ordains me to,--
+  To Heaven's door, and _through_, my lad,
+    O I will walk with you."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Amanda, by Anna Balmer Myers
+
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